


The Last Peace

by amythis



Series: Margaret And Somehow Hawkeye [3]
Category: MASH (TV)
Genre: Bisexual Hawkeye Pierce, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-24
Updated: 2018-07-03
Packaged: 2019-04-26 16:55:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 22
Words: 26,172
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14406417
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/amythis/pseuds/amythis
Summary: Before, during, and after the end of "The Wrong Sin."





	1. Trapper

"Are you out of your ever-loving mind?"

"Hi, Trapper. I guess you got my letter."

"Yeah, and you're still a couple days early for April Fools."

Hawkeye had expected a reaction like this. He had only to imagine what his 1950 self would've said to know what Trapper would say. He'd thought it would come in the form of a letter rather than a phone call, but it made sense that Trap would take the more spontaneous action.

"No, it's for real."

"You're marrying Hot Lips?"

"No one calls her that anymore."

Trapper ignored this and instead asked, "How far along is she?"

Hawkeye had expected this, too, so he had the reply ready. "Negative six months, give or take a month."

"Uh huh. So how far along are the two of you?"

"Are you, a grown man with a wife and children, asking me what base I got to?" Hawkeye hadn't expected that, although he should've. They used to report their progress with the nurses.

"Yeah, she's a tease, right?"

"So according to you, the only reasons to get married are pregnancy and sex?"

"No, sometimes money is also a factor."

"Ah, the eternal romantic!"

"Come on, Hawk. I know you had that med school shack-up with that Carla broad, but—"

Hawkeye had to laugh. "Her name was Carlye and only you could describe the love of my life that way."

"I thought I was the love of your life."

"I take it that Louise isn't home." Hawkeye was very glad that his father wasn't home.

"You are crazy. I don't call my ex-lovers from the house. I'm at the office in between patients."

"What does your receptionist think of that?"

"Who do you think placed the call? And she's one of my other ex-lovers."

Hawkeye chuckled. Trapper was always willing to sacrifice the truth for a joke, although there may've been a kernel there.

"So Hot Lips isn't the love of your life?"

Hawkeye had anticipated this but still wasn't sure what to say, especially since he had trouble explaining it to himself. "It's complicated."

"Oh, I get it. The sex is the best you've had since you got home. And she's a good nurse, so why not marry her?"

As with the description of living with Carlye during residency, Trap wasn't totally wrong. "That's part of it."

"Aha! You fink! This time I really do want details. None of that crap about cuddling her while you were exhausted at the aid station."

"Since when are you anti-cuddling?"

"I'm not, but I didn't call you for a snuggle report. Is she as good as I hoped? You at least have to tell me that. "

Hawkeye closed his eyes and smiled. "Better. A great body of course, and she really knows how to use it. Warm, passionate, playful."

"Details, Hawk."

Trapper was so different from B.J., who never expected Hawkeye to kiss and tell. Hawkeye opened his eyes and put on the voice of an indignant Southern colonel. "Sir, you are speaking of my betrothed!"

"Are you gonna challenge me to a duel?"

"OK, OK," Hawkeye said in his own voice, "she has the cutest little tattoo of the Stars and Stripes on her ass."

Trapper chuckled. "You bastard."

"Me? You're the one making an obscene phone call."

"You wish."

It felt both strange and natural to acknowledge their past. A long time had gone by but in some ways it felt like yesterday that they didn't get to say goodbye.

As if reading his mind, which Trapper used to do as easily as reading Hawkeye's nudie magazines, Trap said, "When I left that hellhole almost three years ago, I never expected our reunion to be at Major Houlihan's second wedding."

"I know, Trap. But she's changed. She's not so Army now."

"Oh, I know. Chuckles told me."

Hawkeye hadn't laughed this hard in the kitchen since one Christmas when his newly widowed father managed to burn their entire dinner. Gasping for breath, he said, "Tell me you didn't call Charles Emerson Winchester III 'Chuckles'?"

"Not to his face. I just called him 'Chuck.' "

"Oh God, I wish I'd been there. He went apoplectic when Beej and I tried to call him 'Charlie.' "

"Speaking of cute little nicknames."

"Wow, this really is a call from a jealous ex-lover."

"Why should I be jealous of you and 'Beej'? I loved being replaced the minute I left."

"What was I supposed to do? Wear black the rest of my life?"

"A little mourning might've been nice. I didn't run out and get myself a shiny new boyfriend."

"You were going home to your wife!"

"He's married, too, isn't he?"

"Yes, but we didn't fool around."

"No, you can't fool around with a saint."

"Trap, is this what your call is really about?"

"I loved you, Hawkeye." Trapper's voice dropped to a whisper. "I thought you loved me, too. Maybe we never said it in so many words, but I thought you knew."

"Of course I knew, you idiot. And I can love more than one person in a lifetime. Even in one war."

"Do you love her, Hawk? I've seen enough loveless marriages. I don't want that for you."

"Yeah, I do." Now Hawkeye was whispering, too. "I know all her warts, no, before you ask, not literal warts. But knowing her flaws makes it better. I don't idealize her."

"Hm. I guess I always thought your wife would be somebody you'd be so mushy about, I'd wanna puke. With happiness of course."

"Thanks. I don't know, maybe it's the war, or getting older, but I'm less dramatic than when you knew me."

Trapper stopped whispering. "Chuckles said that, too. 'Mahgret is less rigid nowadays and Pierce is less of an arrested adolescent.' So I told him you were arrested but never convicted."

It took Hawkeye a couple minutes to stop laughing that time. "God, I've missed you! Why don't you come up here?" Boston was only about eight hours away.

"And see you sometime? Sorry, I don't fool around with guys anymore."

"I'm not looking for a last fling. We can just talk, go fishing."

"I hate fishing. And I'll see you in a couple months at the wedding."

"Then you'll go?"

"Of course, you moron. This is my RSVP."

Hawkeye snorted. "So I have your blessing?"

"Only if you swear she isn't just after your body."

Hawkeye whispered again. "She's in love with me, Trap."

"Who wouldn't be?" Trapper John McIntyre hung up without saying goodbye.


	2. Other Names

"Spearchucker!"

"Hot Lips?"

Normally blasé New Yorkers turned their heads at that greeting, but then walked on.

She blushed a little. "Sorry, Captain Jones."

He smiled. "It's OK, Major Houlihan."

"What are you doing in New York?"

"I moved here when I came back from Korea. What about you?"

"I live in Maine now and, well, I'm buying my wedding dress." She could've bought one in Portland but Klinger said he had a cousin on the Lower East Side who could get her an incredible bargain.

"High quality stuff, Major. I ordered my own wedding gown from there."

She had her doubts but there was no harm in looking. It was an eleven-hour drive from Crabapple Cove, but she hadn't yet moved out of Portland, so last night she took the train, which was seven and a half hours. She slept sitting up in her seat, as she would that night on the way back.

She was sort of at loose ends at the moment. She'd quit her job but hadn't yet moved in with Hawkeye and his father, since she wasn't going to move out of her apartment until the first of the month. (April Fool's Day, but it couldn't be helped.) So she thought a trip to New York would do her some good, and she was curious about Klinger's cousin's warehouse.

"You're getting married? Wow, congratulations!" Spearchucker said now. She wished she could remember his real first name. It wasn't like with Trapper John, where she heard it often enough to remember. And Jones had been at the 4077th such a short time, just a few months.

"Thank you. Um, it's my second marriage, so it'll be just a small ceremony." Not that her first wedding had been a grand ceremony. And poor Donald was in a full-body cast, thanks to Hawkeye and B.J.

"Hey, I'm not angling for an invite."

"Oh. Do you want to come? Um, it's to Hawkeye."

Jones's brown eyes widened. "Hawkeye Pierce?"

She chuckled. "I know. It's pretty unbelievable."

"No, it's great! And he always had a crush on you, so it makes sense."

"He did?"

"Well, I thought so, but you know I tend to just quietly observe."

She didn't know that. She really didn't know him at all. But suddenly she really wanted him as a wedding guest. "Please come to the wedding, Captain. I know Hawkeye would love to see you again."

"That's really sweet, Major."

"Margaret."

"Oliver."

She nodded. "Oliver, I know you haven't seen either of us since the beginning of the war, but you're part of our history, and I'd like to have you there if you can make it."

"Well, when is it?"

"June 19th." They'd chosen the last Saturday of Spring. Trapper's daughters would be out of school and Margaret hoped they'd be flower girls. Hawkeye had promised to ask in his letter to Trapper.

"Um, yeah, I can try."

"Great! I'll have Peg send you an invitation."

"Peg?"

"Peg Hunnicutt. She's the wife of one of the doctors from after your time. She's managing the guest list."

Peg had insisted on helping with the wedding as best she could from the other side of the country. So that was the task Margaret gave her, since she knew that Peg had done a fine job with the "reunion" of their relatives in the States.

"Ben, I'm not being a jealous girlfriend," she said on a walk in the woods by his house last week.

"Technically jealous fiancée."

"Right. But can you give me a list of nurses that you didn't date or try to date in Korea?"

"Just at the 4077th or south of the 38th Parallel?"

"Hawkeye."

"You probably remember better than I do."

She sighed. "OK, I know not Kellye, because you've told me she told you off for ignoring her."

He looked self-conscious. It had not been one of his finer moments, but he also seemed to appreciate, after the fact, challenges to his ego, as Margaret well knew. "Well, I danced with her."

"She danced with everyone. She loves to dance. I'll have Peg put her on the guest list."

"Fine. Oh, and there's Ginger. But only because Trapper and Spearchucker both dated her."

"Would it be awkward to have her at the wedding? I mean because of Trapper."

"Darling, I'm going to be at the wedding."

It was strange at times to think that she was marrying Trapper's ex-lover, but Hawkeye thought it was no stranger than himself marrying Frank's ex-lover.

"Let me give you my address," Oliver said. "Even if I can't make the wedding, I'll try to visit sometime. Crabapple Cove, right?"

"Right. Oh, and Ginger might be at the wedding." She thought it was only fair to tell him, in case it would be awkward for him, although he at least, as far as she knew, wouldn't be bringing a wife to the wedding.

"So I wouldn't be the only Negro there?"

She blushed again. "I didn't mean that. It's just you were, um, friends."

"Yeah, it'd be nice to see all my um-friends again."

She did remember he'd had a dry sense of humor, but very different than B.J.'s.

He added, "Do you have a pen and paper?"

"Of course," she said, taking them out of her purse. For some reason, he looked amused.

"Thanks." He took them and wrote his address in New York.

When he handed the pen and paper back, she saw that he'd written his name, too. "Dr. Oliver Harmon Jones."

"Thank you. I'll pass this on to Peg."

"OK, and I'll send my reply as soon as I can."

She supposed it seemed a bit silly to go through these formalities, when probably her verbal invitation was enough. But she knew Peg would be happy to have another entry for the short list.

She wasn't sure if she should hug Oliver goodbye, not because he was a Negro but because she didn't know him very well and she wasn't physically demonstrative with acquaintances. He shook her hand and said, "Good to see you again, Maj— Margaret."

"You, too, Oliver."

Then she continued heading towards the subway to the Lower East Side, where she hoped to find a champagne-colored wedding dress that wouldn't need alteration and would go well with her light blonde hair. (The red dye for her reunion with Hawkeye had been as temporary as that for the red party, although their reunion was not.)


	3. Cancellation

"Hey, Beej, what's up?"

"We can't make it." His voice was shaky.

Tomorrow the Hunnicutts were going to fly from San Francisco to New York and then take the train to Portland, where Hawkeye had chartered a bus to take them and some of the other guests who'd be arriving that day, the day before the wedding, to the Crabapple Cove Inn.

"Is there a problem with the flight?"

Now B.J.'s voice was faint. "She lost the baby this morning."

"Oh God, Beej! Is she all right? Are you?"

"She's recovering OK so far. Physically I mean. But we really wanted this baby."

"I know. God, I wish I was there!" He wanted to hold B.J., let his best friend cry on him.

"Thanks, but you've got a wedding to get ready for. We're both really sorry to miss it."

"Don't even, no, don't worry about that. You just look after Peg."

"I am. And her parents are here, so that helps. Her mom is taking care of Erin."

"God, Erin, does she, did you tell her anything about the baby?"

"No, she's only three and we were waiting for the 'why is Mommy getting fat?' questions."

Peg must've been in her fifth month. Miscarriages are heartbreaking at any time, but Hawkeye knew this was even rougher than if it had been earlier.

"Do, does Peg's obstetrician know what caused it?"

"No, he said sometimes it just happens."

"Wow, Beej, I don't know what to say."

"I know. But I wanted to explain why we're taking back our RSVPs."

"Beej."

"Maybe Trapper can fill in as best man. I don't know."

"Don't worry about it. I mean, obviously, I wish everything was OK and you could be here, but...."

"Yeah. Take lots of pictures, OK?"

"Of course. And, and, maybe you guys can visit us for Christmas or something."

"Christmas in Maine. Yeah, that sounds nice. Erin can play in the snow."

"Yeah." Hawkeye didn't know what to say.

"Give my love and Peg's to Margaret."

"Of course. And same back to you." Hawkeye knew he should more directly say "I love you" to B.J. but it was hard, especially right then.

"Thanks. I've got to go."

"Yeah. Um, write to me."

"Always." B.J. Hunnicutt also hung up without saying goodbye, but it was forgivable.

Margaret came into the kitchen just as Hawkeye was hanging up the old-fashioned wall phone that his father refused to replace. At least it didn't have a crank.

"Was that one of the guests?"

He wanted to be flip and say, "I'm afraid we've had a cancellation." Instead he reached out and grabbed her for a tight hug.

"Ben?"

"Peg lost the baby!"

"Oh, poor Peg! Poor B.J.!"

"Yeah." He kissed Margaret's hair.

"Is she all right? How's B.J. doing?"

He summed up the conversation.

"I wish I could've talked to her. Or at least him."

"Yeah. Sorry. I should've gone and got you."

"No, don't worry about that. We can call them from Edmundston."

The honeymoon would be in Canada, just a half hour away. They'd talked about going further away, maybe even Hawaii, or at least New York City, but they'd finally admitted to each other that they wanted to spend almost all the time alone together, so the location didn't really matter. His father was good about giving them their privacy, but officially she still slept in Sarah's old bedroom, and she and Hawkeye wanted to wake up in each other's arms every morning as soon as they were married.

He didn't joke about taking time out of their honeymoon to call up another couple. "God, I love you! You're so, so righteous!"

She laughed gently. "I'm not sure if that's a compliment, coming from Hawkeye Pierce."

He shook his head. "You just have this moral compass, different from mine, but so sure."

She shook her head, too. "I used to be that way. Even when I was wrong, I insisted I was right. Korea took that out of me."

"Me, too," he admitted.

"But this is easy. We love B.J., and we care about Peg. And we'll be thinking about them of course, even on our honeymoon."

"Yeah. But part of me just wants it to be the two of us."

"I know. We'll have that most of the week. But you and I, well, we're always going to have our MASH family."

"Yeah. And we're going to see a bunch of them in two or three days!"

She laughed. "I can't tell if you're excited or dreading it."

"I'm not sure. We're absolutely certain Ferret Face is not going to crash the wedding and declare his undying love for you, right?"

"Nothing is certain with Frank Burns. But I don't think he's in touch with anyone from our camp, and as far as he knows, I'm still married to Donald." She didn't mention that as far as they knew, Frank was also still married, but then that hadn't stopped him from obsessing about her before.

The doorbell rang right then, and they looked at each other and laughed.

"Sorry," Hawkeye said, "but if that's Frank, I'm going to punch him in the face."

"Not if I get there first."

When they went into the living room, Hawkeye's father was greeting the McIntyre family, including a very pregnant Louise McIntyre.


	4. Louise

"I'm really sorry we got the dates mixed up," Louise McIntyre said as she followed Margaret upstairs.

"It's fine," Margaret said.

The Mcintyres thought they were supposed to arrive on the 16th rather than the 18th. The inn was all booked for that night, but it was available for Thursday. Hawkeye's father invited them to spend tonight at the Craftsman, and he did own the house. Louise and her daughters were getting Sarah's room, while Margaret would go into Hawkeye's room, Trapper would sleep on the couch, and Hawkeye would get the cot in the downstairs office. No one pointed out that Dr. Daniel Pierce wasn't giving up his own room.

He was now watching _Captain Video_ with Becky and Kathy. Hawkeye was showing Trapper the pond. Margaret knew they had things to talk about, and not just who would be Hawkeye's best man in three days.

It was strange seeing Trapper again after three years, especially before she was ready. He looked much the same. There were a few strands of gray in his curly blond hair, but it didn't stand out like it did in Hawkeye's black hair. He still had the same crooked smile. He was still attractive, but she wasn't drawn to him like she'd always been drawn to Hawkeye. At this point, she just hoped that they could someday be friends.

They hadn't hugged hello. In some ways, it was more awkward than with Oliver a couple months ago. She knew Trapper much better, but still not all that well. And they weren't exactly on the best terms when he left.

She'd half expected him to give her a big kiss goodbye, like Henry Blake had a couple weeks before. She was never attracted to Colonel Blake, but he was a good kisser. It was strange sometimes to think that she was the last woman he kissed before he died, when he'd thought he would be kissing his wife in less than 48 hours. (Peg had contacted Lorraine Blake at one point, even though B.J. knew Henry only by legend. Lorraine was very bitter about the war and wrote back, "You better hope they don't kill your husband." Peg didn't tell Margaret that until the rest of the 4077th was safely home.)

Hawkeye had been broken by Henry's death, although he expressed it in manic behavior. At the time, she thought he was reacting to Frank's temporary command, and certainly that had been part of it, but he had grieved for the bumbling colonel more deeply than any of them, except for Radar, who put up a wall of innocence, drifting further from the cigar-smoking, alcohol-drinking (usually Blake's cigars and alcohol) voyeur he'd been for most of the first year at the 4077th. At first, Radar had seemed an old soul in a young body, only his teddy bear a sign of the boy he still was chronologically. But in some ways he was younger when he went home, although wearier.

That time, she gave the big kiss goodbye, enough that Radar exclaimed, "Hot Lips!", after years of calling her "Ma'am" and "Sir." She wasn't attracted to him either, but she'd grown fond of him over the years.

Anyway, after Blake's death, Radar was holding down the fort and onto his sanity, while Frank, who was just as bumbling as Henry in his own way, although she was still too infatuated to see it— well, she'd had moments of clarity, but she'd glossed them over— thought he was running things in that gap between Blake and Potter, while Margaret made the important decisions. And Pierce was more obnoxious than ever, so Frank was happy to give him a week's R & R in Tokyo. Trapper wouldn't be nearly as bad without his partner in crime.

In fact, Trapper was subdued that first week or so after Henry's death. And then came the news that Trapper was discharged.

At first, he didn't really react to that either, but then he had been the skeptic six months or so earlier when it looked like peace might be declared. (Margaret had actually been disappointed, partly because she didn't want to lose Frank, and partly because she still thought of war as a grand adventure. A year or two later, she'd seen peace and war very differently.)

And then, after an hour or two, it sunk in enough that Trapper got drunk and stayed drunk for two days. The culmination of this was when he ran through the mess tent naked. Frank "protected" her by covering her eyes. Then he'd tried to get the MPs to capture Trapper, but the nude captain ran out into the night.

The next time she heard from Trapper was the following morning, when Radar was trying yet again to reach Hawkeye in Tokyo. Margaret was in "Frank's office," making redecoration plans.

"You must be excited to go home, Sir."

She could hear the shrug in Trapper's surpringly sober voice when he said, "If I don't get shot down over the Sea of Japan."

Margaret teared up, as she had when Radar had informed them in the OR of Blake's death. Henry had been a terrible commander but a good surgeon and a mostly decent man. She suddenly imagined Trapper dead, thought of his wife and two daughters waiting for him to come home, like Lorraine Blake had been waiting earlier in the month. (And Lorraine had had a little baby, born while Henry was in Korea, a boy who'd never meet his father.) Margaret found herself stroking the hair of a Japanese doll that Henry had bought on one of his own trips to Tokyo. He'd left it behind, although presumably he'd bought it for his little girls. Maybe he forgot it in the hurry of packing. She thought of offering it to Trapper for his own daughters, but she didn't want him and Radar to know she was listening.

"Sir," Radar sounded like he was going to cry.

"Never mind. Just make sure we track down Hawkeye."

But they hadn't. Trapper had delayed as long as he could but he finally said, "I'd better go before they stop me, like last time." He'd been told before that he was going home but this time it was for sure. And soon he was standing by a jeep, looking around at everyone.

Their eyes met, Trapper's hazel gazing into her blue. She couldn't help licking her lips, anticipating him grabbing her and kissing her. She'd have to act surprised, and hope that Frank would be too stunned, like the times that Henry and Hawkeye had grabbed her for a kiss, but she wanted to finally know what it was like to kiss Trapper. And, yes, he'd come on to her over the years, in a different way than Hawkeye, but she knew that would've meant sex, and she was ambivalent about that with him. One man married to a woman named Louise was enough for her. And she didn't want to think about the power it would give him if he had sex with her, how he and Hawkeye, who he'd of course tell every detail, would treat it as a dirty joke. By the time she had sex with Hawkeye, so much had changed.

A kiss though, one kiss goodbye, she wanted that. As Trapper stepped closer, she tried not to look at Frank to her right or the corporal to her left, the boy who observed everything.

Then just when she thought he was going to swoop in, Trapper leaned down and softly kissed Radar on the cheek! The camp hooted and cheered, as they had when Trapper ran naked through the mess tent. She felt like he'd slapped her. They should've been hooting and cheering for him kissing her.

It seemed silly three years later, but that was what she felt at the time. Frank looked almost as outraged as if Trapper had grabbed and kissed her, although definitely more surprised.

Radar started to rub the kiss off with the back of his hand, but Trapper quietly said, "Don't. I want you to give that to Hawkeye for me."

Radar dropped his hand. "OK, Sir." And then he raised it in a salute, which Trapper returned.

No one really reacted to Trapper's remark, but not everyone was standing near enough to hear it. Father Mulcahy was on Radar's other side, but he had a tendency to tune out the more outrageous moments at the 4077th. She didn't think even Klinger, on the priest's other side, or Frank heard it. She heard it but didn't fully take it in at the time.

Once she got over the wound to her pride, and as her opinion of Frank continued to sink and that of Hawkeye continued to rise, she thought the gesture was sweet. Trapper was acknowledging his bond to Hawkeye in front of everyone, as well as saying goodbye to his best friend indirectly. She didn't consciously think that Hawkeye and Trapper had been lovers. That really only occurred to her after she saw Hawkeye kissing B.J., and she hadn't known for sure until four months ago, when she and Hawkeye were talking some about their pasts. Trapper had known that his and Hawkeye's reputations as ladies' men protected them. Even when they danced in their tent in front of him, Frank had just seen it as them being juvenile. Their affair was, in hindsight, as obvious as Margaret's with Frank, if you knew what you were seeing.

Margaret opened Sarah's bedroom door and set down the girls' suitcases. Then she started gathering together enough clothes to get her through the night and next day.

"I really am sorry about this," Louise said as she set down her own suitcase and then carefully straightened up.

"Don't worry about it. We're just glad you could make it."

"Thank you." Louise drifted over to the window and Margaret at first thought she was admiring the view of the woods behind the house, and then Louise said, "They have a lot to catch up on."

Margaret wondered if Louise could see Trapper and Hawkeye walking through the woods or if she just knew they were in there, on the way to the pond. She also wondered what, if anything, Louise knew about Trapper's affairs in Korea. Louise probably assumed that her husband had just been close friends with Hawkeye. But if Margaret was never going to ask her friend Peg what she knew or suspected, she certainly wasn't going to ask this woman she'd officially met only minutes before. She simply said, "That they do."

"He's been wanting to visit for awhile, but I think he feels awkward because it's been so long, and he knows that B.J. replaced him as best friend."

Margaret wasn't sure what to say but after a pause, she said, "Well, B.J. was there twice as long. But Trapper is still important to Hawkeye."

"I know. Anyway, I insisted we go, even though he thought I was too close to my due date."

"How close are you?" Margaret had to ask.

"Two weeks."

Margaret put on her "nurse" voice. "You should be fine, but let us know if you need anything to be more comfortable."

"Thank you." Louise moved away from the window and eased herself onto the foot of the bed. "Peg Hunnicutt is pregnant, too, isn't she? Not as far along of course."

Margaret winced and then sank into the chair. She softly said, "Peg had a miscarriage this morning."

"Oh no!" One of Louise's hands went to her face, the other protectively to her swollen belly.

"She's recovering all right. But, obviously, the Hunnicutts won't be here on Saturday."

Louise nodded slowly. "So Hawkeye needs a best man. And that's why they went for a walk."

"Yes."

"Well, I hope John can swallow his pride and stand by Hawkeye."

For a moment, it felt odd to hear Trapper called by his first name, but no odder than when Margaret called her fiancé Ben she supposed. Margaret wondered if Peg knew what B.J. stood for, but Peg probably would never tell.


	5. Almost the Best

"Don't we need poles?" Trapper asked.

"Huh?"

"And bait?"

"Oh. No, I promised you I wouldn't take you fishing. We're just going to see the pond."

"Your dad said it was a lake."

"He exaggerates sometimes."

"Uh huh. And what was that about 'Sarah's bedroom'?"

Hawkeye sighed. "It's different now. He doesn't play that game about Sarah and my mom anymore."

"Since Hot— Margaret moved in?"

"No, before that. But, yeah, sometime after I started seeing Margaret."

"So she's like a daughter to him?"

"Sort of. But I think he's just living in the past less."

"Well, that's good. But he still calls it Sarah's bedroom?"

Hawkeye sighed again. "Because it's always been Sarah's bedroom. The Swamp wasn't literally a swamp."

"So you say."

Hawkeye shook his head. "Anyway, can we talk about something else?"

"OK. I didn't mix up the dates."

Hawkeye stopped walking and stared at Trapper. "What?"

Trapper stopped walking, too. "I wanted to see you before everyone else and this was the only way I could get away with it."

"Oh, Trap," Hawkeye said softly.

"Now don't get me wrong. I don't want to fool around. Not with my family and your dad and your betrothed in the house. I just, Hawk, I don't want to be just another guest at the wedding."

Hawkeye shook his head. "You could never be just another anything. And you know you could've visited me months ago. Or I would've gone to Boston if you invited me."

"I know. But I think I wasn't ready to see you until now."

"What were you scared of?"

"I don't know. That you'd changed too much. That I'd changed. That things wouldn't be like they were. Or that they'd be too much like they were, when there's no room in our lives anymore to be the bad boys of the 4077th."

Hawkeye nodded. "Yeah. I think we'll always be good friends, maybe close friends again someday. And I'll always treasure my time—"

"Don't get sappy, Hawk."

Hawkeye chuckled. "OK. I'm glad you're here, really glad. And you know we don't have to be the only two people in a room to have a connection."

"Yeah, but we probably shouldn't be exchanging meaningful glances when you're taking your vows. Or laughing at Frank Burns at the reception."

"Frank Burns is not invited to this wedding!"

"When did Frank not being wanted somewhere ever stop him?"

Hawkeye knew Trapper was kidding but he really hoped that Frank wouldn't hear about the wedding. If Donald Penobscott as Margaret's husband had caused Frank to slowly go crazy (well, crazier), then Hawkeye as her second husband would land Frank in a rubber room.

Hawkeye gestured that they should start walking again, so they continued on the path to the pond. He waited a minute before saying, "The Hunnicutts won't be at the wedding either."

"I thought 'Beej' was your best man."

Hawkeye sighed. He didn't want Trapper to feel like the runner-up but there was no good way to say this. He wished he'd been able to call Trap in Boston tomorrow but he'd delayed as much as he could already. "He was going to be. But, well, Peg had a miscarriage this morning."

"Oh shit!"

Hawkeye felt like laughing, although Trapper hadn't meant to be funny. It was just that Trapper had a way of, well, cutting through the crap. He'd reacted from his gut, as a husband and father. Hawkeye felt terrible for B.J. and Peg, but he couldn't empathize because he'd never (knock wood) gotten a woman pregnant. The closest was with Margaret, when he'd been tangled up in her pregnancy scare, probably not the possible father and yet not 100% sure. He couldn't have predicted then that he'd eventually marry her, and maybe someday get her pregnant on purpose. He didn't know what he'd do if Margaret had a miscarriage, but the idea was still sort of abstract.

"Every time Louise gets pregnant, I worry a little, but she's healthy as a horse. "

Hawkeye thought that was a strange way for a man to describe his wife, but Trapper had seldom been sentimental about his wife. (His daughters and a little boy named Kim, yes.) What Hawkeye said was "Why didn't you tell me Louise was pregnant?"

"I was going to. And then I don't know, I thought it would be funny to just surprise you by sending you a picture of the baby when it's born."

"Oh." It was so different than with B.J., who'd told him early on, although not, as Hawkeye later discovered, as early as B.J. told Margaret. Hawkeye knew that even if B.J. hadn't had to miss the wedding, he still would've told Hawkeye about the miscarriage. Trapper probably wouldn't have even told Hawkeye that Louise had been pregnant. Was it the difference between the two men, including their attitudes towards their wives, or was it simply that Hawkeye and B.J. had stayed close, while Hawkeye and Trapper had drifted apart and had only recently started to reconnect?

"You were working up to asking me to be best man, weren't you?" Trapper still knew Hawkeye pretty well.

"Yeah," Hawkeye admitted, "but I didn't want you to feel second best."

"You mean third best."

"Third best?" Was Trap counting Margaret? She wasn't a man, even though they'd teased her about it in her Hot Lips days, when she was tougher and braver and, OK, bossier than Frank.

"Well, I know you'd pick the late great Captain Tuttle if you could."

Hawkeye chuckled. "Yeah, but he's so modest he'd want more of a background role."

"Plus Margaret lusted after him more than after me."

"Hell, you were in love with him yourself."

"He was the perfect man. May he rest in peace."

Hawkeye shook his head and then he walked a few yards more and showed one of his best friends the pond that had seemed like an ocean when little Benjie used to row across it with the imaginary friend who led him in and out of trouble.


	6. Kittens

"No wonder Daddy didn't want to come to the wedding."

Margaret knew that Vicky didn't mean that to come out as harsh as it sounded. Margaret knew the reason her sister said it. Vicky found Hawkeye witty and charming, and everything their father despised in a man.

Margaret knew her father would've adored Donald. The lieutenant colonel had, on the surface, been Margaret's ideal. Tall, built, good-looking, but in an all-American way, not like Trapper John. And he had a high rank and money. He seemed like the perfect husband, when he was anything but. Her father had never met Donald, but he probably would've told her to look the other way about Donald's affairs.

Her father had met Hawkeye, when he visited the 4077th. Hawkeye was casual, sometimes sloppy, usually irreverent, very unmilitary. She got past that, eventually even appreciated it, but her father wasn't and never would be charmed by him. That Hawkeye was a country doctor, some of whose patients "paid him in kittens," didn't help.

Hawkeye always found homes for any animals bartered for his medical services, but he had promised her they could keep the next puppy he got. She had a weakness for dogs, like the mutt that got run over in camp. She'd let her guard down, not just in loving the dog but in letting Hawkeye hold her when she cried over its death.

Her father wouldn't have understood this aspect of her relationship with Hawkeye, how they could be "weak" with each other, and somehow come out stronger. Father had distanced himself from Mother when her drinking got out of hand. Or maybe Mother's drinking got out of hand because Father had distanced himself.

Mother wasn't coming to the wedding either, not because she disapproved of the groom, whom she had not yet met, but because her doctors thought it was a bad idea. Margaret couldn't promise a "dry" reception, and the wine alone would've been too tempting for her mother. Margaret was relieved, since she didn't want her mother to embarrass her in front of her friends, but she wished she had a good mother figure in her life. Even in her 30s, she needed that, perhaps more than ever, now that she was getting married again and hoped to have children before it was too late.

She and Hawkeye hadn't discussed parenthood seriously yet but he had joked a few weeks ago, "Can you imagine some poor kid stuck with us as parents?"

"He or she could do worse."

"True. I pity the Burns girls."

She couldn't argue with that. Louise Burns didn't sound like any more of a prize than her husband, and Margaret couldn't see her as a loving mother.

As for Mrs. Houlihan, she wrote that she hoped that this marriage would work out better than either her own or Margaret's first. It wasn't much of a blessing, but it was better than Father sputtering on the phone, "The man's practically a Communist!"

Hawkeye thought that was funny when she told him. "I'm more of an impractical capitalist. Here, Kitty, Kitty!" A tabby had crawled under the sofa.

Margaret had almost told her father, "He's just a pacifist," but she knew that would've been worse. Her father saw pacifism as weakness, especially in a man, while she'd learned to see it as one of Hawkeye's strengths. And she loved Hawkeye's tenderness, with her, with the kitten he lured out with tuna, with her niece.

The baby was named Mamie, after the First Lady. Movie-loving Hawkeye of course had crooned "Put the blame on Mame" like a lullaby. It made Margaret laugh and Mamie smile, although Robert, Vicky's husband, said it was just gas. Robert wasn't a doting father. Not that he was cold like Father, but, as Vicky said, "Men are hopeless with babies." She seemed to put Hawkeye in a different category, perhaps because he was a doctor.

He was now holding, not so tenderly, Ginger Bayliss on the dance floor. The wedding party had gathered at the inn the night before the ceremony. It was sort of a reunion, even though not everyone had met before, and not everyone from the 4077th was present.

It was good to see those who were here, but a little overwhelming after almost a year apart. There was time for hugs and hellos, handshakes and congratulations, but no real conversation. Even on the dance floor, Margaret hadn't really been able to say or hear much. But she knew it wasn't the time or place for that.

"May I have this dance?"

She looked up into Trapper's smiling hazel eyes. Even though they'd spent a night and the following day in the same house, they hadn't said too much to each other. It wasn't just that there were other people around: his wife and children, her fiancé and almost father-in-law. They'd never found it easy to talk directly to each other. They used to relate to each other through Hawkeye. In the three years since they'd last met, he'd gone home and picked up his old life as best he could, while she'd changed in ways that neither of them could've imagined in '51.

Their relationships with Hawkeye had definitely changed, and sometimes she wasn't sure whose had changed more. Hawkeye and Trapper had once been inseparable, and that bond hadn't needed a sexual dimension, although she was sure the sex enhanced it, as sex had enhanced her connection with Frank. 

She and Frank hadn't fallen into bed, or in love, immediately. At first, they were just thankful to find each other, seemingly the only sane people in that madhouse of a MASH unit. They were allies, then friends, and then lovers. Much, much later she realized that Hawkeye and Trapper had gone through a similar journey.

"Why not?" she told Trapper, although she could think of a few reasons.

He didn't hold her too close and his hands didn't roam. But they were close enough for conversation, unlike Radar and Kellye, who were jitterbugging as they had three and a half years ago, the first night Hawkeye and Trapper had opened up the Officers' Club for enlisted men.

She struggled to think of small talk and then rejected it. She was trying to decide between thanking him for coming and congratulating him on the baby, when he asked, "Can I tag along on the honeymoon?"

"I don't think Louise would approve." She didn't say that Hawkeye probably would.

"Then can I throw a bachelor party? I mean, it is my duty as best man."

She thought of Hawkeye's joke proposals their first year in Korea, and how he had once "announced their engagement" in the OR. If they really had gotten married in that first year, unlikely as that would've been, Trapper would've thrown one of the Swamp's typical wild parties. Here in quiet little Crabapple Cove, the bad boys of the 4077th couldn't misbehave much. There would be no strippers or stag films, unless Trapper had ordered them from Portland or New York City.

"An all-male poker game. Cigars. Some alcohol but not enough to incapacitate him." She didn't say that that's what B.J. would've offered.

"Deal." He moved one hand off her back and offered it to her. She took it and after they shook, he spun her out. He was a good dancer, but she'd known that for years, seeing him dance with her nurses.

When she spun back in, he held her closer than before, but he said, "Can Becky and Kathy come to the shower?"

She was startled. "The shower?"

"Well, Louise will want to throw you a bridal shower. And as long as you don't play strip bingo or whatever, I'd like my little girls to attend."

She laughed and was weighing various replies, when she heard Hawkeye exclaim, "Spearchucker! You made it!"

Oliver Jones stood in the doorway with a box of cigars and a deck of cards.

Margaret looked up at Trapper with narrowed eyes. Was this all a set-up, and Trapper had known all along what she would and wouldn't allow?

Trapper's face was unreadable as he let go and said, "Thanks for the dance."

Her father wouldn't have approved of him either.


	7. W*A*L*T*E*R

The hangover was mild, especially compared to the ones he'd had in Korea. He had told Trapper last night, "I'll kill you if you get me drunk and put a body cast on me."

Trapper loved the story about how Hawkeye and B.J. had ruined Margaret's first wedding day, and every other story of the mischief Hawkeye got into with his second partner in crime. B.J. had felt jealous of Trapper, a legend he couldn't live up to, but Trapper, whatever romantic jealousy he'd gone through, seemed to treasure the tales of "St. Prankster."

Hawkeye would tell B.J. that nickname the next time they spoke. B.J. hadn't called again, and Hawkeye hadn't really expected him to. B.J. had to focus on his family right now, just as Hawkeye had to focus on the wedding and this reunion. He'd call B.J. when things quieted down, probably from Canada.

The B.J. stories weren't just Hawkeye's. The other men at the table, Spearchucker of course excepted, had chimed in. And then came the stories of Henry Blake, which Sherman Potter had been tickled by.

Hawkeye dreamed of Henry last night. Henry was in a new suit and fedora, like when Hawkeye saw him last. He was tying Hawkeye's tie for him, helping him get ready for the wedding. "So you tamed the wild cat?"

It was Hawkeye's dream, so he didn't need an explanation. He replied, "Or she tamed me."

When he woke, with that mild hangover, he thought that settling into domesticity wouldn't be as boring as he used to fear, not with Margaret as the little woman. He'd also woken with an erection, since Henry was not the last person he'd dreamed of.

He thought of her in the bedroom down the hall, the bedroom his sister slept in for seven years. Last night was the last night Margaret would sleep there, barring future arguments that they wouldn't settle before sleep. Soon he would whisk her across the border and they'd sleep together there. But he wanted to wake her up and sleep with her premaritally, one last time.

He got out of bed and put on his robe. If his father caught him, Hawkeye would pretend he was just on his way to the bathroom. And then he'd take a cold shower. But he made it safely down the hall and quietly opened her door and shut it behind him. He waited until he stood next to the bed before he whispered, "Baby?" He didn't want to startle her.

The lump in the bed stirred. "Sir?"

"Radar?" Had Trapper pranked him? Hawkeye didn't know if he was more annoyed or impressed, but he was certainly no longer aroused.

"Good morning, Sir."

"Good morning. What the hell are you doing in Margaret's bed?"

Radar reached for his glasses on the night stand. "You don't remember?"

Hawkeye hadn't thought he'd drunk enough to induce temporary memory loss, but maybe he still wasn't fully awake. "Remind me."

"Well, the wives said it was tradition for you not to see the bride before the wedding."

The wives were presumably Mrs. McIntyre and Mrs. Potter, but probably not Mrs. Klinger, who had her own culture and traditions.

"I thought that was just seeing her in her wedding dress."

"Well, they disagreed about that, but Mrs. Potter said it was best not to take any chances, even if you two have been," Radar's voice dropped to a whisper, "living in sin."

It hadn't felt sinful to Hawkeye, and not just because his father lived there, too. Neither he nor Margaret had exactly been a virgin when they got together, and their relationship wasn't just about sex. Besides the emotional support, there was practicing medicine together, now in a much less life-or-death setting, and doing mundane chores and errands, which he'd never really had much with a woman. Carlye had been his "uncommon-law wife," but Carlye could cook and clean. Margaret wasn't much better at domestic life than he was, but she was trying, and his dad still did most of the cooking. Anyway, it was already sort of like being married, except when it wasn't, and he didn't think the ceremony in a few hours would change things much.

"Yes, we have to observe the proprieties," Hawkeye said drily.

"Uh, right. So she's staying in Kellye and Ginger's room at the inn."

"Ah." He vaguely remembered that plan. "But that doesn't explain what you're doing here."

"Well, it turns out Father Mulcahy snores, loudly."

"Good thing he's celibate."

"Right."

"Speaking of, is now a good time to ask what happened to your wife?" Hawkeye had heard through Colonel Potter that Radar's marriage had ended almost as soon as it started, but no one seemed to know the details. And Radar had responded to Peg's RSVP by crossing out "and guest."

Radar looked self-conscious, but his old habit of confiding in his sometime idol kicked in after a moment. "Well, she left me on our honeymoon. For another man."

Hawkeye shook his head. "Radar."

"So then I tried to kill myself."

"Radar!"

"I didn't get too far. I bought some sleeping pills at the drugstore, but the clerk was really nice and she cheered me up. And my cousin Wendell, in St. Louis, got me a job on the police force."

"You're a cop?"

"Well, yeah, a rookie. It's mostly paperwork, which I'm good at." That was a typically Radarian understatement.

Hawkeye shook his head. "You've been going through all this without telling any of us?"

"Well, I didn't want to bother anyone with my problems. You've got your own things to deal with, all of you."

"Yeah, but, Radar, we're a family."

"I know, but, jeez, Hawkeye, I didn't even want to bother my mom. I'd already sold the farm and sent her to live with my aunt."

Hawkeye felt guilty. He had done his best to keep in touch with everyone, but he hadn't been there for Radar. Not that he could've done much, but if he had called Radar, checked in with him more, maybe it would've made a difference. "Are you OK now?"

Radar hesitated. "I'm lonely."

"Radar, call any time. And visit when you want. This'll be the spare room again soon and my dad is happy to have guests."

"I know. He's the one who suggested I sleep in Major Hou— um, I'm not sure what to call your fiancy now."

"Not 'Sir,' she hates that."

Radar smiled a little. "OK. Anyway, thanks. But I'm, this is sort of embarrassing."

"Radar, you know you can tell me anything."

"Well, I was mostly a virgin when I got married."

Hawkeye grinned, realizing how much he'd missed this kid, who was of course now a 23-year-old man, but still a boy in Hawkeye's eyes. "Mostly?"

"I did some stuff, in Korea, not Iowa. But my wedding night was really my first time. Not hers. When we were engaged, I found out she cheated on me, but Colonel Potter, Klinger, and Father Mulcahy talked me into forgiving her. Everybody makes mistakes. Except it wasn't a mistake for her. It was a mistake for me. And now she's gone."

"Do you miss her?"

"Well, no, not really. I miss who I thought she was at first. But I miss, um."

"Sex?"

"Yeah. You guys always said how great it was but I thought you were exaggerating. But it's pretty great."

Hawkeye smiled and tried not to think too much about Margaret. "Yeah, it is."

"So, well, I don't want to just have S-E-X. I want to fall in love, but with somebody who's a good person this time."

"You're still young. There's time."

Radar nodded. "Thanks for listening."

"Of course. You want to meet me downstairs for breakfast in fifteen minutes? My dad's pancakes are impeccably edible."

"Yeah, sure. You know me, I'll eat almost anything."

Hawkeye grinned again and hoped that if he ever had a kid, which was becoming more of a possibility, it'd be just like the corporal who had "been like a son to him." Or a daughter like Klinger wouldn't be bad either.

When he went downstairs, he found his father, who'd been like a dad to him, having breakfast with the MASH family member who was like a snooty cousin to him, and an unidentified man in a chauffeur's uniform.


	8. Girlfriends

Margaret looked at herself in the bathroom mirror. It struck her as unreal that she was getting married again, especially to Hawkeye. Yet there she was, in her second wedding dress. And her groom was a few miles away, in his childhood home.

She was honoring the tradition that her groom not see her before the wedding, even if it seemed a bit silly after all they'd gone through. But she'd resisted the tradition that she had to have her attendants help her dress. For one thing, she didn't have a flock of bridesmaids, or any. Ginger and Kellye were just guests, and it wasn't as if she was close to any single women. She could've asked her sister for help, or the motherly Mrs. Potter, but she found it easier to be independent.

She'd done her own hair and makeup, too, keeping them simple. She hoped Hawkeye would like it and that she'd make a presentable bride, but she found that she didn't care beyond that. She gave herself one last look, thinking of how the next time she'd see herself she'd be "Mrs. Benjamin Franklin Pierce," even though during her brief marriage to Donald, she'd still been known as "Major Houlihan," not "Major Penobscott." Then she went back into the bedroom she'd shared with Ginger and Kellye last night.

"Well, he is single again," Ginger was saying. Were they talking about Oliver? Had he not been single for awhile? And how did Ginger know, unless she'd kept in touch, or talked to him last night? Margaret was no matchmaker but she did think it would be nice if Oliver and Ginger got together as a result of this wedding.

"Major, you look beautiful!" Kellye gasped, looking towards the bathroom door.

Margaret smiled a little. They still called her by her rank, even though she'd left the service almost a year ago. And she had always been realistic about her looks. She wasn't beautiful. Sexy, pretty, occasionally cute, but not beautiful.

"You do," Ginger said matter-of-factly, "but do you want me to put up your hair? You have a good neck. You should show it off."

No one had complimented her neck since Frank. He had seemed fixated on her above the shoulders— her throat, her ears, her forehead. Now that she thought about it, he'd enjoyed necking more than sex. Hawkeye liked necking, too, of course, but his physical compliments tended to be for the parts of her below the shoulders. But both men loved her hair. She'd wanted to wear it down, like at her first wedding, since it was so often up and out of the way when she was nursing.

Sensing her hesitation, Ginger said, "I'll do tendrils."

"And I can add a little mascara and shadow to bring out your pretty blue eyes," Kellye offered.

So Margaret was fussed over after all. But it was nice, not so much for the change in her looks as in that they'd offered it, less like attendants, or underlings, than like friends. She would like to be friends with both women, maybe someday, when more time had passed and she'd improved in the skills of friendship.

Friendship was so easy for Hawkeye. She envied that. Not only was he charming and fun, but he was warm and sympathetic. Her father and some other gung-ho military men aside, almost everyone liked him, wherever he went. And he liked almost everyone. She knew she could never be like him but maybe she was capable of friendship. After all, she and Peg were friends, even though they'd never met in person.

She wished Peg could be there that day. She hoped Peg was recovering all right. Losing a baby must be so hard. Margaret had felt a mixture of relief and regret when her pregnancy scare ended and she couldn't imagine what it would've been like if it had been a miscarriage instead. She was past 30 now and knew she had only a few more years where she could safely get pregnant. She really did need to talk to Hawkeye about children soon, although not necessarily on their honeymoon.

Someone knocked and Kellye went to answer it.

"Oh, you look lovely, My Dear!" Mrs. Potter exclaimed.

She was kind, although old-fashioned in her notions. Margaret was glad she had finally met her, after all of the colonel's stories. And it was good to meet Louise McIntyre, in a different way, although Margaret did wonder what exactly that marriage was like. Margaret realized suddenly that she didn't know anyone who had a marriage like she wanted, although the Hunnicutts came close.

"You're not wearing white, are you? Or is that off-white?" Vicky said as she came through the open door.

"It's champagne," Margaret said, trying not to show her irritation at her kid sister.

"Hawkeye would have to wear black, wouldn't he?" Louise asked, which made them all laugh, even Mrs. Klinger, once they explained it to her.

Soon-Lee told them of how the tradition for Korean brides was a pink or purple hanbok. It sounded lovely to Margaret.

"What about second marriages?" Ginger asked.

"They were rare."

"Just think, in Hollywood, Major Houlihan would be just getting started on her matrimonial career," Kellye said, making them all laugh again, although Margaret winced, too.

She had no plan to ever marry again if things didn't work out with Hawkeye. She'd decide that marriage just wasn't meant for her, or she for it.

"Y-you look as puh-pretty as Ch-Charles said."

Margaret looked at the most recent woman to arrive in the room. "Honoria?"

"M-Margaret, right?" She pronounced it as her brother did but with the stutter that Charles had once admitted to Margaret that his sister suffered from.

"Yes, I'm so glad you could make it!" Margaret went over and hugged the awkward young aristocrat.

"Of c-course. I'm sh-sure we're g-going to be guh-great fuh-friends."


	9. The Wedding

"...If any man, uh, or woman objects to this union, speak now or forever hold your peace."

Even though it was his own wedding, Hawkeye was very tempted to say something, like that life with Margaret wouldn't be that peaceful. Or something cruder about holding her piece. If it'd been someone else's wedding and he'd been sitting with Trapper, he'd want to wisecrack like he did at the movies at the 4077th, or at one of Henry's rambling sex lectures. As it was, he was impressed by Trap's restraint, but then Trapper wasn't sitting; he was standing next to and up for Hawkeye as best man. Hawkeye suddenly imagined Trap and Beej teaming up to prank him, slipping embarrassing items into his luggage at the very least. He had to force himself not to grin.

He glanced at Margaret and saw she looked nervous. Either she was afraid someone would jokingly object, or she feared that Frank would rush into the clearing and say, "This man is a filthy degenerate who it's degrading for Major Houlihan to even speak with."

The pause seemed to drag out forever, and then Father Mulcahy cleared his throat and continued. There had never been any doubt who would officiate at their wedding, even if he had officiated at Margaret's first wedding. Agnostic though Hawkeye was, this tough but gentle priest had always been not just his favorite man of God but one of his favorite people. And Mulcahy didn't just do Catholic services, so when Hawkeye asked, "Would you like to perform a ceremony on the edge of the Crabapple Cove pond in mid-June?", the priest wrote back, "Ah, you're finally marrying Margaret. Congratulations!" Hawkeye hadn't breathed a word about dating Margaret to anyone at General General, but maybe Peg and/or B.J. had said something. Or maybe this celibate man understood romance better than Hawkeye thought, or even than Hawkeye did.

Here Hawkeye was at the altar (well, a whatnot dragged out to the pond from his dad's living room) and he still couldn't clearly articulate why he was marrying Margaret. Yes, he loved her and, yes, they were good together in so many ways, but it was more a matter of he couldn't think of any good reason not to marry her. It had been so different the other times he'd proposed to women, jokingly or not, yes, including Margaret. Yet he didn't worry that he was making a mistake. It just felt like the right thing to do, and not just because it seemed to be what everyone expected of them, even though no one would've dared say that in Korea.

Margaret looked more nervous than Hawkeye felt, and not just because she was worried about objections. She had been married before so she knew how it could sour, and quickly. He wasn't Donald but that probably didn't help. She knew all of Hawkeye's flaws, and he hers, long ago, but they also knew each other's strengths. She and Donald had never seemed like more than acquaintances.

Donald had cheated on her and stole her money. Hawkeye would never do either. Well, he couldn't say with certainty that he'd never stray, not when even B.J. had. But he'd never met a woman who fascinated him as much as Margaret did and sex was just sex after all. He'd had enough premarital sex to last a lifetime, five of Radar's lifetimes.

He glanced back at Radar, hoping the kid was all right. If Hawkeye hadn't been about to go on his honeymoon, he would've tried to talk to Radar again. God, that was awful, being abandoned on your honeymoon! That seemed unlikely to happen with Margaret, unless she met a really built Mountie of course. Nah, she wasn't Hot Lips anymore, or only with Hawkeye.

"I do."

Hawkeye realized he should focus on the ceremony again, since his mind had wandered so much he'd missed the "Do you, Margaret...?" part. He stood straighter and gazed intently at Father Mulcahy, who looked startled by the attention but still went on.

"Do you, Benjamin...?" The priest had to pause because the crowd gave a collective gasp. Even Hawkeye was a little shocked to hear his given name in the open air. Margaret called him "Ben" sometimes and it felt incredibly intimate somehow, but "Benjamin" was reserved for formal occasions, like the draft board and, he supposed, weddings.

"Do you, Benjamin, take Margaret to be your lawful wedded wife?" It was so close to what Father Mulcahy had asked of Donald in late '51. And Donald didn't, he didn't even try to do.

"...To have and to hold, from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health...."

Hawkeye had had her and held her, and they'd already been through a lot of better and worse, and definitely a lot of sickness and health, mostly other people's. Their finances hadn't changed much and probably wouldn't. They'd likely never be poor or rich, and she seemed fine to be in the middle, having learned that a husband's family's wealth was no guarantee he wouldn't steal her paychecks.

"In war and peace." Hawkeye was unaware that he'd said it out loud until everyone gasped and then laughed.

"Crime and punishment?" Trapper murmured for his ears only, although Margaret caught it and gave them an _Honestly, you two!_ look of annoyance, like the time they were playing cards in their gorilla suits when she wanted them to operate on Frank's hernia. Then she smiled a little.

"Uh, yes, in war and peace. To love and to cherish, till death do you part."

"I do," Hawkeye said. And he meant it a lot more than Margaret's first husband meant it.

Whatever his doubts, he was certain. Having an existential crisis at his own wedding somehow felt normal, at least considering his unusual courtship of Major Margaret Houlihan Penobscott Pierce.


	10. Congratulations

"I'm glad you didn't forget to have a happy life," Sherman Potter said and then kissed Margaret's cheek.

He was still a dear, sweet man. He'd given her away of course, like last time but with more joy. She didn't think he'd had Hawkeye in mind when he gave her that farewell advice eleven months ago, but he had seen their kiss a few minutes later. Certainly B.J. wasn't surprised when they announced their engagement, but the other witness to that kiss had mostly seemed embarrassed by the public display of affection.

"Congratulations, Mahgrit. Or should I say Mrs. Hawkeye?" Charles said when he clasped her hand.

She smiled. "Either is fine." He'd shown up last of the guests, with his sister and chauffeur, but she had the feeling that his gift would be in exquisite taste. (She and Hawkeye had agreed to open the gifts after they got back from the honeymoon.)

"Major, you look sensational!"

"Thank you, Klinger. And thank your cousin for me. This is as nice a wedding dress as the one you loaned me last time."

"Hey, what can I say? We have a real sense of style in my family."

She chuckled. "That you do."

"Uh, Maj— Ma'am, can I kiss you? On the lips?"

Even Trapper hadn't asked for that. He had whispered in her ear, "Be gentle with Hawkeye. It's his first honeymoon," which made her laugh and blush.

She'd managed to whisper back, "It may be his first wedding night, but I doubt it's his first honeymoon," which made Trapper chuckle and look at her in surprised admiration, like the times she'd been drunk in front of him and spoken her mind.

She was surprised that shy little Radar was the one to ask for a kiss. She didn't know exactly what had happened to him on his own honeymoon but his wife was apparently out of the picture and Margaret still thought of him as awkward and inexperienced with women. She didn't want to reject him after what he'd gone through and she saw no harm in a little kiss.

"Henry-Blake style?" Trapper teased.

"Geez, no, I'm too short and I don't have the upper arm strength for that," Radar protested.

He didn't grab her in his arms and bend her back for a big kiss. For that matter, the kiss wasn't like the goodbye one she gave him. It was a soft, sweet kiss. Still, not just Trapper but Hawkeye hooted and cheered.

She rolled her eyes at her groom and then told Radar, "That was very nice." She almost said, "Don't give up. You'll find a girl who deserves you someday," but she didn't want to embarrass him further.

"Thanks, Maj— Ma'am."

At least he didn't call her Sir anymore.

Father Mulcahy was the last to congratulate her. "I really do give you two all the blessings I can."

"Thank you. And thank you for officiating."

"Hey, I haven't missed one of your weddings yet."

Only he could get away with saying that, and she laughed harder. "I'll be sure to call you up next time."

"I hope that you'll be an 80-year-old widow then."

"Um, thank you."

Before she knew it, she was hugging her new father-in-law goodbye.

"Have fun in Canada, Margie!"

She blushed a little, although he hadn't said it leeringly. He was much more of a gentleman than his son, but who wasn't? If she'd wanted a gentleman, she wouldn't have given up on her flirtation with Charles after a month.

"Thank you, Dan." It was the compromise they'd worked out. She didn't yet feel comfortable calling him "Dad," but his name sounded enough like that word that it felt right to both of them. Most people called him "Doctor," with a few calling him "Daniel." As with her calling Hawkeye "Ben," it was a short nickname that only she used. And he'd started calling her "Margie" early on and it'd stuck.

Everyone had gathered around the Pierce-Arrow, which Dan was letting them take across the border. He'd joked that it hadn't gone to Canada since the rum-smuggling days of Prohibition. At least, Margaret hoped he'd been joking.

Many of the neighbors and patients had come to the wedding and the reception afterwards. Margaret knew that it was exciting for them to see handsome "young Dr. Pierce" finally get married, and to "his pretty blonde nurse." It was their equivalent of a Hollywood wedding. Dan had taken to teasing the two of them by calling them Joe and Marilyn, after DiMaggio and Monroe, who'd tied the knot in January. Hawkeye of course had pretended his dad meant "Joe Stalin" or "Joe McCarthy."

Margaret was doing her best to settle into the community, despite being an outsider, although she knew it was nothing compared to what Soon-Lee Klinger must've been going through in River Bend, Missouri. Margaret liked Crabapple Cove and its people but she always had a hard time making and keeping friends. She felt honored that so much of her MASH family was at the wedding and that was who she was focused on, more than she was on her sister or even her adorable little niece.

She hoped there would be another wedding or some other celebration to gather them all together again, soon. But for now, she was quite happy to go off alone with her best friend and worst enemy from the 4077th.

As Hawkeye started the car, Margaret's eye was caught by a face in the crowd, the grimacing face of Mrs. McIntyre. Margaret hadn't been a nurse for over a decade for nothing. "Honey, stop the car! Louise's water broke!"


	11. Wilde

It was the second time that day that Hawkeye had been tempted to quote Oscar Wilde. The first was when Trapper asked if Hawkeye had anything he wanted him to say in the best man speech. Hawkeye thought of "Men always want to be a woman's first love; women like to be a man's last romance." But he didn't want to be Margaret's first anything. Well, first man to celebrate a wedding anniversary with would be nice.

And now when the border guard asked if he had anything to declare, it was very tempting to say, "Nothing but my genius." He resisted.

They almost hadn't left Crabapple Cove, so Hawkeye didn't want to delay getting into Canada any longer. It wasn't Louise's fault she'd gone into premature labor right after the reception. She was still a week and a half away from her due date. Margaret had made him stop the car and go over to Louise, even though Trapper said, "Look, Buddy, you're not the only doctor here." Hawkeye still felt guilty about leaving to go on his honeymoon.

"You always have to be the hero, don't ya?" That was Henry's voice in his head. Henry had said it teasingly once on the way out of the OR. Hawkeye told himself he was a lazy coward, but he did have that side which wanted to save the day, and get credit for it, even when he was in a Santa suit. It was a tough habit to break, especially for a doctor.

Even with Margaret, there were times when he'd tried to rescue her, protect her, at least solve her problems. He remembered holding her when she mourned the camp mutt and then a few weeks or months later holding her more intimately, when their own deaths seemed imminent. Of course, that hadn't exactly solved anything for either of them, not in the short run anyway.

"No, Sir, nothing to declare."

After the bored-looking guard waved them through and they were officially in Canada, Margaret said, "I thought you might declare one previously owned bride."

Hawkeye chuckled. "Yeah, but you're a classic in mint condition."

"Like the PA?"

"Yeah, with a heck of a rumble seat."

He caught her rolling her eyes. Then she quietly said, "Why didn't you say anything about how I looked in my wedding gown?"

He was startled. All brides are beautiful, and everyone tells them so. It wasn't even the first time Hawkeye had seen Margaret as a bride, so it wasn't like her beauty had surprised him.

"You looked as lovely as ever, My Dear," he said, using a Hollywood British accent, part Cary Grant, part David Niven. "Only lovelier."

She rolled her eyes again but smiled a little.

It wasn't far to their hotel now that they were across the border. It was very strange for him to sign them in as a married couple and mean it.

Margaret was in her travel outfit and looked the part of a respectable married woman. He'd changed out of his wedding garb, too. It occurred to him that it was not a tradition for everyone to say that the groom was handsome.

They found their room but he hesitated at the door. Should he carry her over the threshold, or would she think it was corny and old-fashioned? He glanced at her and saw that her big blue eyes were looking up at him, waiting. He looked away and nonchalantly unlocked and opened the door.

"Ben?" He heard amusement and impatience, longing and insecurity, seduction and frustration in her tone.

He put the room key in his pocket and then scooped her into his arms.

"Hawkeye!" she exclaimed and then giggled.

"We have to observe tradition," he murmured.

He kissed her as he carried her in. She closed the door behind them and then ran her fingers through his hair, her other hand gripping his shoulder. He wasn't sure if that was out of passion or if she was afraid he'd drop her. Luckily, the bed wasn't too far away.  


He set her down gently and lay next to her, deepening his kisses as her mouth opened for his tongue. The hand on his head continued to stroke but with little pulls that he could feel not just on the roots of his hair but on the roots of himself. The other hand moved down from his shoulder and along his spine, over his shirt and then, after untucking it from his slacks, under.

He stroked her face gently with one hand, while his other hand impatiently untucked her blouse from her skirt. Then that hand caressed her stomach and up to her bra, which felt lacy and flimsy. He wanted to grin but he was too intent on French-kissing her.

Soon they were both shirtless. He remembered how good it had always felt to take off government issue clothing, his own and that of others. And he thought of the times he'd wanted to strip with Margaret, get rid of the khaki and get down to the skin. That would always be in the background, no matter how many times they took off civilian clothes.

They necked as he teased her breasts with his hands and then unhooked her bra. "You do make a beautiful bride," he said.

"Thank you and you're a handsome groom.

He grinned, thought that this was a moment when Wilde was wrong that you can never be overdressed or overeducated, and continued to remove clothing, his and hers.


	12. Edmundston

Margaret woke to memories of her second wedding night, which were much happier than those of her first. She and Hawkeye kissing, necking, undressing. Touching each other, knowing they belonged together, belonged to each other, in a way they hadn't before.

And for the first time since their first time, they didn't use birth control. He had said, "Should I put on a condom or are you wearing a diaphragm?"

"Ben, now that we're married, well, would it be a bad thing if I got pregnant?"

"Well, no. Do you want kids? I mean so soon."

"I'm not saying you have to get me pregnant tonight."

"Good, that takes the pressure off."

"But I do want kids."

"So do I," he'd said as if realizing it as he said it. "Not a big family. But, yeah, a kid or two."

She'd kissed him. "Good. And if we don't have any, well, I think it'll be all right. But I'd like that possibility."

"No condoms then."

He'd moved inside her last night, unprotected, as her legs wrapped around him. His orgasm seemed more intense than usual, his kisses afterwards more tender. Her own orgasms made her laugh helplessly. He wasn't offended, but instead seemed charmed.

She smiled as she remembered. And then Hawkeye opened his eyes and smiled back.

"Mr. and Mrs. 4077th," he murmured.

"What?"

"That's what Henry called us when he, Trapper, and Frank were sick and you and I were holding down the fort."

She remembered. She'd run the administrative side while he was the only working doctor. They'd been a good team, despite their prickly relationship.

"I still miss him," Hawkeye said quietly.

She stroked his cheek. "I know."

"Can we call our daughter Henrietta?"

"No!" she exclaimed, laughing.

"What about Blake? That works for a boy or a girl."

"Let's wait until I'm actually pregnant before worrying about names."

"How do you know you're not?"

It was possible. She was ovulating. "Well, maybe we should make extra sure."

"I'll give it the old college try."

They made love again but she had no idea if they were making a baby. She knew some women, like some of her patients, and Peg, just knew at the moment of conception, or soon after. When she had her pregnancy scare, she'd been so sure looking back that it'd happened with Donald in Tokyo, but it wasn't as if the thought had crossed her mind that night. And they'd been careful. In the end, it was just her gallbladder.

It didn't really matter until it happened, she supposed. Part of her was sure it would, sometime. She'd already imagined different possibilities for children with Hawkeye, different combinations of physical features and personality traits.

But she also accepted that she was getting a later start than some women. It might not happen for her right away, or ever. After all, she and/or Hawkeye might be infertile. Yes, they'd been using birth control, separately and together, for years, but the odds were that an accident could've happened by now. Yet she'd never been pregnant and he, as far as they knew, had never impregnated anyone.

If it still didn't happen when they weren't using birth control, well, she'd be disappointed, but she knew that they could be happy without children. Or if she had a miscarriage like poor Peg, or a stillborn, like a few of her patients, more often in Korea than Maine. It would be heart-breaking, but she could survive. 

She had considered adoption, if Hawkeye couldn't get her pregnant by the time she was forty. But that was still a long way off, and so much could happen in the meantime. For now, it was lovely to have Hawkeye all to herself, with no patients, relatives, or friends making demands on them.

However, they didn't keep to themselves as much as on their Valentine weekend. At that time, they were in some ways still very new to each other, and there'd been no guarantee that they would ever get together again. Every moment was precious. Now they could take each other for granted, which was nice in a way.

They ate in restaurants and went for walks in Edmundston, which wasn't terribly different from Maine, although a bigger town than anything in their neck of the woods. They were just in time to catch part of the Festival Jazz et Blues d'Edmundston (the Edmundston Jazz and Blues Festival). And it was summer and sunny and for once in their lives they were free to spend their time however they wanted.

They still thought of their patients, their families, their friends. But they mostly thought about each other.

And then on the third day of their honeymoon, after the morning lovemaking but before brunch at their new favorite restaurant, she said, "I think we should call B.J."

He agreed and then they had to find out how to place an international call from a hotel.

"I wish Radar was here," Hawkeye said, as he hung up the receiver on the third try.

"I'd have to put on clothes," she pointed out.

"I'm glad Radar isn't here," he said, and they decided to try calling again in a few hours.


	13. Awkward Phone Call

"Hey, Beej." Now that they'd gotten through to B.J., Hawkeye felt funny about it. Not just because they were on their honeymoon, but because he and Margaret didn't usually make calls together. They certainly hadn't in Korea, where they rarely had the same agendas, even after they truly were friends. Even in the time that they'd lived together as an engaged couple, they kept their calls, even to patients, separate.

Margaret sat beside him on the bed. They were wearing the outfits they'd worn to brunch, minus shoes. She held his hand that wasn't gripping the receiver.

"Hey, Hawk. So you finally got out of bed." It was a good sign that B.J. was able to tease.

"Actually, I'm in bed right now."

"With Margaret?"

"Who else?"

"I hope I'm not intruding."

"Hey, I called you. Uh, how are you doing?"

B.J. sighed. "OK I guess."

"And Peg?"

"Better."

Hawkeye didn't know if the awkwardness of the conversation was due to the subject or the fact that Margaret was listening. Probably both. But when she signaled that she wanted the receiver, he passed it over.

"Hi, B.J."

"Hey, Margaret, how's married life treating you?" Hawkeye could faintly hear B.J. ask.

"Good so far."

"Glad to hear it."

"I want you to know that Hawkeye and I are both thinking of you two."

"I know, but thanks. It helps."

"And, um, Father Mulcahy said he'll pray for you."

Hawkeye was more surprised than B.J. sounded when he said, "You told him?"

"No, only Trapper and Louise know why you two couldn't make it. With everyone else, we said that Erin had a fever and you didn't want to risk flying."

Hawkeye and Margaret had agreed on that as a cover story, wanting to respect the Hunnicutts' privacy. If B.J. wanted to tell anyone else in their MASH family about the miscarriage, that was up to him.

"Oh. Well, thanks. So Father Mulcahy is praying for us because our daughter has a fever?"

"That's what he said. But."

Hawkeye knew what she was thinking. He leaned forward and said, "Sometimes the good father knows more than he's telling."

"Well, he does have his sources," B.J. said drily.

Hawkeye chuckled, although he felt guilty laughing right then.

"Anyway, so tell me about the wedding."

Margaret did most of the talking, but it was more of a woman's topic. Hawkeye found himself remembering how she used to talk over people, especially if she was angry and/or had a point to prove. It was reassuring somehow that, even though she seemed much more contented these days, she hadn't changed entirely.

Margaret left out Louise going into labor. Hawkeye understood. It was not the time to tell B.J., so soon after the miscarriage.

"I wish I could've been there. And Peg really wishes she hadn't missed it."

"Is she home from the hospital? Can I talk to her?" Margaret asked.

"She's napping right now. But I could have her call you later."

"No, no, that's fine."

"Are you sure? After all, you wouldn't mind being interrupted on your honeymoon, would you?"

Margaret laughed and blushed. Hawkeye wondered if she knew that Donald's full body cast was B.J.'s idea, although Hawkeye had happily gone along with it.

"Excuse us, Beej. We've got to go reconsummate."

Margaret laughed and blushed harder, although now she looked like she wanted to scold her husband.

"Have fun, Kids," B.J. said and hung up without saying goodbye.

Margaret set down the receiver and scolded her husband. He apologized, and then they reconsummated.

Afterwards, he thought of suggesting they call to find out about the McIntyre baby, but he decided that could wait until after the honeymoon.


	14. More Names

"No, seriously, what's the baby's name?"

"I am serious. And I assume Trapper is, too."

Margaret shook her head. "He's named his son John Thomas?"

"Well, I imagine Louise at least had veto power."

"I doubt Louise has ever read _Lady Chatterley's Lover_."

"But you apparently have."

She could feel herself blushing, but she didn't give up. "That poor little boy! What's going to happen when he goes to school? Or when he grows up and wants to be taken seriously in the workforce?"

"I don't think most kindergartners are familiar with the term. And the vice-president doesn't seem too handicapped by his nickname." She appreciated that he didn't add that Nixon was a dick in more ways than one, although she was sure he was thinking it. They did their best not to discuss politics with each other.

"Let's limit our arguments to domestic masters, like whose turn it is to buy dog food," he'd said last week.

They had a puppy now. It was a female collie, so Hawkeye had wanted to name it Petey.

"Like the Little Rascals dog?"

"Yeah."

She knew he didn't want to do the obvious thing of calling the dog Lassie. And even Rin Tin Tin was too famous. He wanted a movie name but not the expected movie name.

"Why not Frances, like the talking mule, but with an E since she's female?" 

He grinned. "Yeah. Frances Henrietta Pierce."

She shook her head, but in disbelief at what a nut she married, not in disagreement over the puppy's name. She now thought she was lucky he didn't want to name the dog John Thomas.

They both adored Franny. She was beautiful, bright, and loving. She followed them everywhere around the house and through the woods. She'd pine for them when they were making house calls, and greet them ecstatically when they came home. Margaret already wondered how they had lived without her.

"Do you think we're compensating?" she asked when Peg called last week, after they'd talked about the wedding and the miscarriage.

"For what?"

"You know, for not having children."

Peg had laughed and said, "You haven't even been married two weeks!"

Margaret knew that but sometimes it felt like she'd been in love with Hawkeye for years and years. It almost felt like they should already have a child. Sometimes she thought of her pregnancy scare, imagined it was real and he was the father. And that they'd been happy about it and it had all worked out once Donald agreed to a divorce. (He was even more eager than he'd been in reality, but then in reality she'd never told him about her night with Hawkeye.). And then she'd do the math on how old their baby would be. About twenty months now, almost twenty-one.

Peg told her, "I think you're two people who are mutually infatuated with an adorable little puppy. It's not like how I feel about Erin changed when I was excited about the new baby. Or will change when we do have another baby." Peg was convinced she would bear another healthy baby someday, although she was following the advice of B.J. and her doctor to wait before trying again.

"Dogs are wonderful, but in a completely different way than people."

Peg was one of the most positive people Margaret had ever known, but in a warm, embracing way, not irritating. She was perfect for B.J., who would sometimes wallow in worries.

Margaret thought sometimes about how couples needed to balance each other, but not as complete opposites. There had to be a base of shared interests and values, like how she and Hawkeye would sometimes stay up late discussing a patient they were concerned about. They had had such discussions in Korea, but never so late and never in bed. She had never really had this before, not even with Frank. They usually just talked about what they were doing and what they wanted to do in bed. Sometimes they would talk about how awful Hawkeye and Trapper were. If patients came up, it would be more a matter of her propping up Frank's ego as a surgeon. And anyway, their time together always felt stolen, so there wasn't much conversation.

With Hawkeye, especially since she moved in but even more since the wedding, it felt like every day was a continued conversation, even when they were silent, even when they were sleeping wrapped around each other. They were connected when they were making love and arguing but also just when they sat and watched TV.

(Franny would curl up with "Gramps," as Dan sarcastically called himself. He claimed that he didn't really like pets but was willing to tolerate the puppy for their sakes. And every evening found him filling Franny's fluffy, pointed ears with observations about the summer reruns.)

Margaret's love for Hawkeye filled her physically but also emotionally and mentally. And yet, she found it was easier now to care about others, not just Dan and Franny, who were easy, but her MASH family and the Crabapple Covers. Fourth of July that year was the best she could remember, not because the fireworks were dazzling (the ones Radar got from Sparky were always better), but because for the first time in her Army brat life she was part of a community, with potlucks and Cutest Baby contests and all.

She got her period on the Fourth. Hawkeye joked about her being blue about the red, but he also gave her a hug and said, "We've got lots of time, Baby." At that moment, she believed him.


	15. Hasenpfeffer

Hawkeye grinned. "The major's gonna have a minor?"

"Ben, I told you I'm not sure. But you know I'm late and I threw up this morning."

"Maybe that was just my dad's cooking," he joked out of habit.

"This was first thing, before you were awake."

"Oh." He wondered if he had been missing other symptoms, failing as her doctor and her husband.

"I don't want to be wrong."

"Well, it's probably not your gallbladder this time."

"You're as comforting as you were last time."

"And it looks like the irritability is back."

"I'm sorry, but I'm scared."

"Scared you're pregnant or scared you're not?"

"Both."

He suddenly wished he were Sidney. Dr. Freedman had written to him recently. Sidney joked about being hurt about not being invited to the wedding, and then said that jokes were very revealing. Hawkeye did feel guilty about it. Yes, Peg had been in charge of the guest list, but Hawkeye should've tried to contact Sidney after the war. The psychiatrist had helped Hawkeye put himself back together after his breakdown, but maybe that was why Hawkeye hadn't reached out. Sidney was a reminder of that time when going crazy to keep from going crazy was no longer just a coping mechanism.

Sidney ran into Charles and Trapper in Boston, a mini-convention at a medical convention. They'd shared stories, some of them overlapping memories, some anecdotes that only one of them knew. Inevitably, they talked of Hawkeye. And of course Trapper and Charles told Sidney that Pierce had married Margaret Houlihan.

Charles wrote, "Like myself, he seemed more amused than surprised, while 'Trap' remains stunned, as if he can't get over the fact that 'Hawk ended up with Hot Lips.' "

Hawkeye wasn't sure where Charles got that last part. After the initial surprise, Trapper had seemed to take the engagement and then marriage in stride. But Sidney indeed seemed, at least in his letter, as if he'd expected this all along.

In some ways, Sidney knew him better than anyone. Better than his dad, better than Margaret, better than B.J. or Trapper. Not because they were closer but because of Sidney's profession. Well, OK, combined with their friendship.

"Why are you scared of being pregnant?" Hawkeye thought he understood why she would be scared not to be. Well, not scared but disappointed. "It's too late for them to kick you out of the Army."

She grimaced. "Never mind."

"I'm sorry, Sweetheart."

She took his hand. "I know, Ben."

"Is it the birth itself?" They'd both seen enough of childbirth to know what could go wrong, and that even when it went right it was scary.

"A little, but it's more that I don't know if I can be a good mother."

He stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. "Yeah, sometimes I worry I won't be a good dad."

"I guess everyone worries about that. But it's different for me than for you because my parents weren't good parents. Not like your dad."

He pulled her closer and kissed the top of the head. "Baby, you're a good person and an incredible woman. And I don't think anyone knows what they're doing, especially at the beginning of parenthood. But we'll figure it out together."

"And if I'm not pregnant? Ever?"

"Then we'll become the best parents possible to Franny."

She laughed. "I love you."

"I love you, too." It got easier to say every time.

"Then will you kill another rabbit for me?"

He sighed. "Couldn't we do what we did last time?"

"Are you going to call up Radar and ask to borrow another rabbit?"

He did need to check in with Radar again, make sure he was OK, but Hawkeye wouldn't call about this. "I was thinking of a more local bunny supplier."

"Farmer Wilkins?"

"Yeah. Do you want to go with me?"

"No, I've got to do the books." She had taken over the bookkeeping and accounting soon after she moved in. Neither Dr. Pierce had ever been good at the financial side of the practice, while Margaret was almost on Radar's level when it came to paperwork. Even when they got paid in animals, no rabbits lately unfortunately, she'd note it down in the proper binder.

Hawkeye kissed her goodbye and went out to his car. It wasn't really until he was halfway to the Wilkins farm that it sunk in that he was going to give a pregnancy test to his wife. Last time, everything was so different, and not just because she was another man's wife and he'd done what he could to not get her pregnant. He'd still been emotionally invested in the results.

This time, well, she might be wrong again. Or the test might be. After all, it was too early to be 100% sure either way. He could put off the test he supposed, but now he was dying to have an answer, even a wrong one.

The rabbit died, although not at Hawkeye's hand. Farmer Wilkins said, "She's no good to me no more if I can't breed her."

So they told Hawkeye's dad the news over a hasenpfeffer dinner.


	16. Burns

When Frank Burns showed up on his doorstep, Dr. Daniel Pierce whispered, "Should I go get my bayonet?" He'd brought it home from the Great War. He hadn't used it, or any weapon, in over 35 years.

Hawkeye had told Margaret, "I'm not sure why he still keeps that rusty old thing, but I think it makes him feel safer. Especially if the Huns ever invade Aroostock County."

"I don't think that will be necessary," she whispered back to her father-in-law.

Then Franny raced from the sofa and lunged at Frank. She still wasn't very big, but she jumped up and tried to lick him.

"Call off your dog!" Frank whimpered.

Hawkeye snapped out of his daze a little and murmured, "Uh, heel, Franny."

Franny barked happily and ran back to the sofa, snuggling up to Dan again.

"You named her after me?" Frank looked touched.

"Huh?" Hawkeye said, still looking stunned that his old nemesis and Margaret's ex-lover was visiting their home, even though Hawkeye had joked about it more than once.

"Well, 'Franny' is short for Frances with an E, right? And Frances with an E is the female version of Frank, right?"

"I thought it was the female version of Francis with an I," Dan whispered.

Margaret would rather have Frank think that they'd named their dog after him than after a talking mule, if it would be an olive branch. Not that she and Hawkeye had done anything wrong, especially towards Frank, but she felt sorry for him and would rather keep the peace.

Hawkeye must've felt similarly because he said, "Yeah, Frank. I hope you don't mind."

"No, not at all. I'm flattered. And I guess there are no hard feelings, huh, Buddy?" Frank stuck out his hand.

"Uh, I guess not," Hawkeye said, reluctantly shaking Frank's hand.

"The best man won." Frank chuckled.

Margaret had always imagined that if and when Frank showed up, he'd act as insanely as he had over Margaret's first marriage, if not worse. After all, Donald, especially early on, hadn't been much more than an abstract concept to any of them, her included. But Frank had known Hawkeye well, even if he didn't really understand him. The two men had lived and worked together for almost a year and a half. In fact, for awhile Frank held the record for living with Hawkeye, not counting Ben's family of course. Spearchucker left and finally, after a false start, so did Trapper, but Frank stayed on. Eventually, B.J. would set a new record, one Margaret hoped to break, but for awhile it seemed that Hawkeye and Frank would see the war to its bitter end together.

The two men grew used to each other she supposed, although she knew that easy-going Trapper came closer to being, if not friends, at least non-enemies with Frank. There was no way that Frank and Hawkeye were ever going to stop butting heads, not when there were such sharp differences in style and ideology. That Pierce understandably didn't respect Burns as a surgeon didn't help matters.

Sometimes she thought about how Hawkeye had matured after Trapper left, partly due to the war and partly due to B.J. Frank barely got to know this new Hawkeye, especially since his grip on reality, never very firm, she had to admit, got shakier before he left the 4077th.

As far as Margaret knew, no one had kept in touch with Frank. He wasn't on any of Peg's lists. Margaret wasn't sure who had told him about Hawkeye's marriage or how, but he definitely knew about it when he decided to pay them a visit, in this little town tucked away on the edge of America.

The remark about the best man winning was an odd one. It wasn't as if Hawkeye and Frank had been in competition for her heart, but maybe they had in a sense been battling for her soul. By the time Frank left, Margaret was drifting closer to Hawkeye's point of view, and certainly by the red party, Frank wouldn't have recognized "his princess," and not just because of the hair dye. Not that Margaret agreed with Hawkeye 100% even now, but she was closer to his side than "Hot Lips" had been.

"Just lucky I guess," Hawkeye said. He seemed really thrown by Frank's appearance, especially when Frank was so amiable.

Margaret was starting to get suspicious. She remembered times when Frank could be nice, even to Hawkeye, if he was after something.

Then he said, "You're too modest, Pierce," and she was sure. Particularly when he asked, "Do you mind if I borrow your wife for a few minutes? Margaret and I have a lot to catch up on."

"Yeah, of course."

Margaret felt offended that the men were discussing her like she was property, but maybe Hawkeye was trying not to act jealous. Or maybe he wasn't jealous. They never had been jealous of each other's partners, at least not consciously.

Margaret decided not to make any objection, since she was curious what Frank had to say to her. It clearly wasn't something that he wanted to say in front of her husband and father-in-law.

She got to her feet and said, "I'll show you the pond."

"The lake," Dan muttered.

She walked over to the front door. She wanted to kiss Ben's cheek as she passed him, but he was so tall and she felt funny in front of Frank. She remembered how she'd tried not to be physically demonstrative with Frank in front of Hawkeye or anyone, but that had been because Frank was married and adultery didn't fit the righteous image he unsuccessfully tried to project. It had been different for Trapper and Blake and the other married men who didn't try to hide their cheating.

She wondered if Frank was still with Louise. He used to promise her he'd leave his wife someday. It was a loveless marriage and she didn't see how he could let it drag on like that. Yes, he was afraid of losing money, but money wasn't everything.

If it been for the sake of his daughters, she could've respected that. She knew how rough divorce was on the children, even if, as in her and Vicky's case, the children were grown. If Donald had ever gotten her pregnant, she might never have divorced him.

And now she was pregnant by Hawkeye. It still felt unreal to her but it was only the first trimester. She could imagine learning about parenthood together, and she could even picture sharing custody if they ever divorced, but she could never imagine a life that he played no role in.

Frank in contrast had quickly become a memory, a milestone in what for a long time seemed to be an unsuccessful love life. If he hadn't shown up, if she'd never seen him again, he'd have remained that, while Hawkeye always was, even before she realized it, the only man who really mattered.

She led Frank off the front porch and around to the back.

"It's a nice house," he said.

"Yes, it's a Craftsman." She didn't know if that meant anything to him. She knew she couldn't tell him how she'd fallen in love at first sight with Hawkeye's house.

"I used to try to imagine Crabapple Cove."

He surprised her. "You did?"

"Hawkeye made it sound like the perfect little hometown."

She'd felt the same but at least Frank had a hometown, Fort Wayne, Indiana.

"Are you happy here?"

She glanced back at the Craftsman. They'd started down the path through the woods. She half expected to see one or both of the Drs. Pierce peeking out the window. "It's a very nice house," she murmured.

"No, I mean, oh, I see. We'll wait until we have more privacy."

"No, Frank, I am happy. In this town, in this house, with Hawkeye."

"But you two are so different! Or you used to be."

"We are very different. But we understand each other better now."

He frowned. "You always were in love with him, weren't you? "

She wasn't sure how to answer that. In a sense, he was right. But it wasn't like it had been conscious, especially early on. And it wasn't like her love for Hawkeye was static. It wasn't even the same now as when they first married, and not just because she was going to have a baby with him.

She knew she couldn't confide in Frank about this, not like she could to Peg, or oddly enough Honoria. Charles's sister had turned into a pen pal and had confided about the Italian man she almost married a couple years ago. So it seemed only fair to answer some of Honoria's questions about Hawkeye.

She didn't want to hurt Frank. She remembered how jealous he'd been when she spoke of how exhilarating it'd been to work with Pierce under the very difficult circumstances of an aid station. It had nothing to do with sex, but now that she and Ben collaborated professionally and personally, she did see how good it was when you had a partnership in every sense.

"It wasn't conscious," she began. "Not when I was with you."

"But now you wish you'd been with him then, don't you?"

"No, I don't," she said, realizing it was true. "He and I weren't right for each other then."

"And you and I?"

She sighed. "I think we were right for each other in the beginning, when we needed each other so much, and agreed so much. But it couldn't last. You were always going to have to go back to your wife."

"I'm divorced now," he said quietly.

They'd been walking along the path through the woods and she was tempted to stop and stare at him, but she just glanced at him and kept walking.

"Since when?"

"Well, when the war ended, Louise said, 'Will your mistress be coming back to America?' "

Margaret was again startled, although she wasn't surprised that Louise knew about their affair. Frank had once or twice made phone calls assuring his wife that there wasn't anything going on with Major Houlihan. Margaret assumed that Louise meant her, although Frank could've had another mistress, besides his receptionist Nancy of course. Margaret supposed it was kind of Louise to not call her Frank's whore.

"What did you say?"

"Well, I said I didn't know what she was talking about, so she said, 'Your friend the major. Or I guess she'd be a majorette.' Then she laughed. She'd been drinking."

Margaret hated that, as with Frank's stories of his miserable childhood, she could picture this perfectly.

"Then she told me she was leaving me for a man with more money. They met while I was fighting for democracy, but she didn't want me to be alone. But now that you were coming back, she wouldn't feel as guilty about leaving me."

It sounded so pathetic and squalid. Margaret felt sorry for him but she didn't want to hear anymore. However, it would've felt cruel to stop him.

"I wasn't going to look you up because I figured you were still married. Then I saw a picture of Lt. Colonel Donald Penobscott in _Stars and Stripes_ with his new bride."

She hadn't heard that Donald had remarried, but then she was no longer in touch with him or anyone who could've told her. Well, even if it'd been possible, she wouldn't have bothered to tell Donald that she'd remarried. It was strange to think that the man she once thought she'd spend the rest of her life with was now almost a stranger. She couldn't imagine that happening with Hawkeye.

Frank seemed to assume she'd known about Donald's second wife, since he continued, "I wanted to find you and see if you were all right. But I decided to wait until we were both officially single, just in case we had a future together."

"Oh, Frank."

"And I wasn't sure how to find you anyway, especially if you'd left the Army. I wasn't in touch with anyone from the 4077th, and it wasn't like you had a home address. Then one day, I got an invitation to your wedding."

Now she did stare at him. She couldn't imagine Peg putting him on the guest list. Could B.J. have done it for a practical joke?

He must've noticed her surprise, because he said, "It wasn't my invitation. Someone wrote on the back, 'I thought you should know.' "

Now she was really baffled. Who would do such a thing and why? "Do you have any idea who sent it?"

"Oh," he said nonchalantly, "it was Lorraine Blake."

"The colonel's widow?" Margaret asked stupidly. She didn't know if she was more surprised that Peg had invited Lorraine or that Lorraine had contacted Frank. Considering that Fort Wayne and Bloomington were only three hours apart, Margaret supposed she should be glad that Lorraine hadn't driven to see Frank, to scheme in person.

"Yeah. I understood why I wasn't invited, and I don't think I'd have wanted to go anyway. I waited until I had a chance to get used to the idea. And I am happy for you, even if I'm disappointed for me."

"Thank you, Frank." She felt like crying.

"I want you to be happy, Margaret. So if Pierce makes you happy, good."

"I appreciate that." She knew this wasn't easy for him.

"It's probably for the best anyway, since you probably want children before you're too old, and I've already got three."

She decided to ignore the "too old" part and instead share her news. "Actually, Frank, I'm already pregnant."

"Oh, so that's why you got married!"

She wanted to slap him but instead turned around and started walking back to the house.

"Uh, aren't you going to show me the pond?"

"It's a lake. And if you find it, jump in it!"


	17. Armentières

"Dad, how would you feel about having the Hunnicutts visit us for Christmas?"

"I'd love to finally meet B.J. after all your stories. And his family. They can all have Sarah's room, or maybe put little Erin on the sofa if they want."

"Thanks, Dad." Hawkeye wasn't surprised. He'd thought his dad would say something like that.

"This'll be even better than them coming in June, since there won't be all the fuss and distraction of the wedding."

Hawkeye chuckled. "Good point."

"I know you didn't get to spend much time with Trapper, so hopefully you'll get to talk more with B.J."

Not for the first time, Hawkeye wondered how much his father suspected about his relationships with his two best Army buddies.

And then his dad turned off the TV and said, "I think the wives will understand."

Hawkeye blinked. "Dad?"

"Look, Son, you don't have to tell me more than you want to, but it's OK. I understand, too."

"What do you understand?"

His father sighed. "Look, Hawkeye, I'm not judging you or questioning your manhood. I understand that things happen during wartime."

If his father was going to confess to affairs with men during the Great War, Hawkeye didn't want to know. Not that he would think any less of his dad, he just didn't want to know too much about his dad's love life. Even a mademoiselle from Armentières, let alone a a monsieur from Aquitaine.

"Well, yeah," Hawkeye admitted.

"And I read the letters you sent me, so I know how much both men meant to you. I assume Margie knows that, too."

"Of course."

"And the." His dad coughed. "Physical part, whatever it was, is over, right?"

"Yeah. Well, except hugging."

His dad chuckled. "I don't think an embrace is infidelity."

"No. Uh, Dad, I don't know what Louise or Peg knew then or knows now. But I've told Margaret everything. We know about each other's past."

"Good. Your mother didn't have much of a past, but she told me about kissing Ned Flanagan under the mistletoe when I was away in France."

"You mean Ned at the hardware store?"

"Well, he hadn't inherited Flanagan's yet, but yeah. Anyway, I'm glad you and Margaret have talked. Your generation, well, you're franker about these things."

Hawkeye winced. It'd been a month since Frank visited and Margaret had told Hawkeye everything about the conversation in the woods. The two of them never made it to the pond because Frank accidentally insulted her, in that way he had. Hawkeye had been more amused than jealous, which Margaret had also been insulted by, although she let him make up with her until his tongue was tired.

His dad chuckled again. "I mean forthright."

"Right. You're pretty direct for an old geezer though." He remembered that his dad had been the best of all the Crabapple Cove boys' dads about sex talks, which Hawkeye had thought was because Daniel Pierce was a doctor, until fifteen or twenty years later when Hawkeye sat through one of Henry Blake's "family life" lectures.

"Well, you notice I'm not telling you about my past."

"And I appreciate that."

His father turned the TV back on and a moment later Margaret came back from grocery shopping. Hawkeye leapt up from the couch to help her with the bags. He felt a little like Franny, who also raced over to greet Margaret, although Franny wasn't helping of course. But they didn't mind her getting underfoot. She loved them unconditionally and that felt good.

It was strange to think that in about a year there'd be a baby crawling around, hopefully not underfoot. Margaret wasn't yet showing and she insisted on still working as a nurse and doing her share of the household chores.

"You're not prescribing bed rest?" she'd teased when she entered the second trimester.

"Only if I could write the same prescription for myself." He still lusted after her and she after him. He supposed that would change when they were exhausted from looking after the baby— he'd promised to help out— but for now she was lovely and glowing and full of energy. Yeah, radiant like a lighthouse.

As they put away groceries in the kitchen— "I'm glad I have a tall husband," she remarked when he did the higher shelves— he told her that his dad was happy to host the Hunnicutts for the holidays. He left out the rest, and not just because his dad was in the next room.

"I'll write to Peg tonight. I owe her a letter anyway. Unless you wanted to call or write to B.J.?"

"No, it's fine. You do it if you don't mind."

She shot him a suspicious look but only said, "This goes in the fridge."

"Thanks." The truth was he felt funny about seeing B.J., as much as he wanted to. Their relationship had always been more emotional, less physical, than the one with Trapper. He wouldn't tell himself, as he used to, that one was more serious, less playful, than the other. Seeing Trapper in person again after so long had reminded him how complicated both relationships were.

Both his friends had gone back to their wives, back to their lives, while Hawkeye had a life like before but not, and a wife he'd known for years but kept discovering. He would always love Trapper and B.J., but it couldn't be like before. So what would it be? He sort of had the answer with Trap, but seeing Beej for the first time since their goodbye hug on a Korean hilltop, what would that be like?


	18. Stirring the Pot

Margaret was surprised how natural it felt, two couples chatting in the kitchen as Peg prepared a Christmas Eve dinner and the three escapees from the Army helped. Margaret and Hawkeye knew everyone in town but they didn't socialize like this, two by two. Two wives, two husbands, the Pierces and the Hunnicutts. And yet at the same time, three people who'd spent two or three years together, fighting and supporting and working and playing and surviving, plus the girl back home for one of them who'd been a symbol for all of them.

And yet, they were four individuals. Connected, yes, in multiple ways, but each with their own history and their own future, their own fears and hopes and secrets. And they'd ended up here, traveling great distances, to celebrate as an extended family of sorts.

"Remember, Hawk," B.J. teased, "the eating for two rule doesn't apply to the father."

"God, imagine if Radar ever becomes a father!" Hawkeye shook his head and swallowed some black olives.

Radar was engaged, for at least the third time. He and Kellye had rediscovered each other because of the wedding. They'd danced and talked but Margaret had been oblivious because she had too many distractions. Kellye, it turned out, had always had a crush on Radar, for his sweetness, his loyalty, his love of animals, his organizational skills, and "his overall cuteness," as she put it in the letter that Peg brought along.

As for Radar, he wrote to Hawkeye that he thought Kellye was cute, too, as well as a good dancer and a good listener. They got engaged without actually dating. She'd gone home to Honolulu, where she was sort of friends with Vicky, while Radar continued to work as a police officer in St. Louis. They hadn't yet decided where they would live once they got married. For now, they were mostly pen pals, but sending love letters as well as news about the scattered members of the 4077th.

"Let's not get ahead of ourselves," B.J. said. "He and Kellye will have to be in the same time zone first."

"True. If Margaret hadn't chased me to Maine, I don't think it'd have happened for us."

She threw a pickle at her husband.

"Hm, I wonder what Sidney would say about this," Ben mused after he caught it. Then he took a bite.

"You want some ice cream with that, Hawk?" B.J. offered.

The Hunnicutts had sort of taken over the Pierces' kitchen, but no one minded. Well, Dan had made a feeble protest that "Peggy" shouldn't have to cook for them after the long journey, but she said she'd been looking forward to it, and after all they'd be staying rent-free for over a week in a lovely home in Maine.

"Who said it was rent-free?" Dan had teased.

He was seeing a patient right now. He'd watched a little TV with Erin earlier, but she was napping in Sarah's room. She was an adorable little girl with blonde pigtails, very talkative at three-and-a-half, including questions about whether she could have one of Franny's puppies if Franny ever had puppies.

"Honey, Franny isn't a grown-up lady dog yet," Peg had said.

"Next year?"

"We'll see. Maine is a long way from California."

Franny was no longer a puppy herself, more of an adolescent. They hadn't decided whether or not to get her fixed but they knew they had to decide soon. Before, as Hawkeye whispered to Margaret, "she meets a grown-up not so much of a gentleman dog."

It had been a little awkward when the Hunnicutts first arrived. It was a combination of Hawkeye and B.J.'s romantic past, Peg's likely ignorance of that, and the simple awkwardness of old friends meeting after going through the drama of war together and not knowing how to act in peacetime.

Then Franny had raced over and licked Erin's face, making the little girl giggle, and that was an ice-breaker. Everyone hugged and that was nice. And then Peg offered to cook dinner as soon as she'd changed out of her traveling clothes.

When the four of them first went into the kitchen, B.J. teased Margaret about her pregnancy.

"So I guess you're a grown-up lady dog now."

"Did you just call my wife a bitch?" Hawkeye asked, making Peg gasp.

Margaret crossed her arms. "As if you never have?"

Hawkeye threw his hands up in surrender. "I plead the Fifth. And insanity."

"Well, I knew you were crazy when I married you."

"That seems more of a proof of your insanity."

"I hope the baby turns out all right," B.J. said.

"Well, Erin seems normal," Hawkeye said.

"That's because Peg is very sane."

"Poor Peg," Margaret said.

B.J. turned a little serious. "I am very happy for you two. Have you talked about names yet?"

"We'd name it after you, Beej, but first you'd have to tell us your real name," Hawkeye said.

"He won't even tell me that," Peg said, starting to get into the spirit of the sibling-like teasing the three of them, and indeed most of the 4077th, easily fell into.

"No ice cream," Peg now scolded, stirring the pot of Maine chowder. "He's spoiling his dinner enough."

"I don't think we have any ice cream left," Margaret said guiltily. Her cravings were kicking in now that she was in the sixth month, although she still didn't like pickles.

"Would you like me to go shopping?" Peg offered. "I'll need some more ingredients for tomorrow's dinner anyway."

"You don't have to do that," Hawkeye said.

"I don't mind. And it's better than me sending you with a list."

"Ben, go with her." Margaret would've offered to go with Peg herself, but she realized suddenly that it might be her only chance to talk to B.J. alone. She had things she wanted to say to him and she had the feeling he wanted to say things to her.

"Oh, all right. If you two trust us not to run off together."

"Just this once," B.J. said.

"I don't know," Peg said. "He is devilishly charming."

"Madam, you flatter me."

After a little more banter and instructions on how to check on the food while Peg was away, Ben kissed Margaret and Peg kissed B.J. and then they went to get their coats, scarves, and so on, to head out into the Maine winter. There was only one grocery store in town that would be open on Christmas Eve, so Ben was going to take Peg there.

When they were alone, after an awkward silence, Margaret said, "It's good to finally meet Peg in person."

"Yeah. You guys probably got sick of me talking about her all the time."

"You know that isn't true. I just got annoyed when you didn't want her to take a job."

He sighed. "Yeah."

"You two are adorable together."

"Well, so are you and Hawkeye. But then I've always thought that."

She blushed a little. "Thank you."

"I'm still sorry we missed the wedding."

"We'll show you the pictures later." Sherman and Mildred Potter took a lot.

"Thank you."

"How is Peg doing?"

He looked startled. "You can ask her yourself."

"I will. But I want to know what you think."

He stirred the pot as he said, "She still wants another baby."

"Do you?"

"Of course. We love Erin, so we want another. It's just."

"What?"

He looked at her again. "I'm scared."

"Of what?"

"Of her losing the next one. Of a stillborn. Of her going through pain and suffering, for nothing."

"Oh, B.J."  


"You know what we saw over there, what some of the Korean mothers went through."

"But that was wartime. You're in peaceful Mill Valley."

"It still haunts me. My nightmares," he murmured.

"Oh, B.J." This time she went over and hugged him.

"Thank you. I know it's irrational, but."

"I know." She had her own fears about pregnancy, and being a nurse didn't help with those.

"Does Hawkeye worry about you?"

She let go and looked up at him. "I don't think so. You know Hawkeye. He jokes. But about things like our kid borrowing the car without asking."

B.J. nodded. "Yeah, we joke about Erin being a teenager in a decade."

"Uh huh. B.J., God, please don't take this the wrong way, and think of me as a nurse and a friend, but, um, has this been causing problems in the bedroom?"

"Wow."

"No, I'm sorry."

"It's too late to take that back. And, yes, it has."

"Oh God, I'm so sorry!"

"Margaret, it's just occasional impotence. It's not life-threatening, or contagious."

"No, I know, but I mean I'm sorry to pry. And I promise not to tell Hawkeye. Or tell Peg that you told me."

"Well, thank you. And believe me, I didn't plan to tell you that. You're better than Sidney Freedman at getting me to spill my guts."

"We can just drop it now."

"OK. Except, well, don't be surprised if Peg brings it up, so to speak."

"Oh God."

"I think she thinks I'm cheating on her."

"You're not, are you?"

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry. It's just, well, does she know about your affairs in Korea?"

"My 'affairs'? I'm not Trapper John. I had one one-night stand and I thought I was in love with another woman, but nothing happened physically with her. I assume Hawkeye told you this, unless he exaggerated."

"No, that's what he said. But you were technically unfaithful."

He backed away. "You're lecturing me, Hot Lips?"

She tried not to lose her temper. "I'm not lecturing, or judging. I'm just pointing out that maybe Peg senses this. And you're the one who said you think she thinks, well, anyway, you have been in love with other people."

"No, I thought I was in love."  


"So you weren't in love with Hawkeye?"

She couldn't believe she'd said it out loud, and he just stared at her for a minute before whispering, "What did he tell you about that?"

She sighed. "He told me how important you two were to each other, which I've always known. And I saw you kissing one night, so I knew about that. And he says it never went any further than that. And I know that you two are not going to run off together, and never planned to."

B.J. shook his head. "I guess I thought no one knew. Where did you see us kiss?"

"On the mouth."

"Ha."

"In the Swamp. One night. I wanted to talk to Hawkeye. It was right after my pregnancy scare." She hadn't been sure if he'd known about the scare at the time but she was sure he did by now.

"Oh."

"So I turned around and was going to head back to my tent, but you came out and talked to me."

"Yeah, I remember that. I mean, I didn't know you were heading to the Swamp but I remember seeing you out there when I went to take a shower."

"Yeah."

"Um, do you want to talk about it?"

She shrugged. "I guess. I'm in a different place in so many ways now, but OK. I was confused, especially because I'd been brought up to believe that homosexuality was next to Communism, and Frank had reinforced that, although I was no longer under his influence. Not that I hadn't had my doubts, like when Private George Weston came through. He was before your time."

"Hawkeye told me about him."

"Yeah. He was an honorable young man, who was bullied for who he was. And you two, well, I didn't know what you'd done beyond kissing, but I knew you both as people. I was startled of course, like if, well, like if Radar and Kellye were suddenly a couple."

B.J. chuckled and then sighed. "I was surprised by it, too, my feelings for him. I've never been attracted to another man. And I'm guessing it was the same for Trapper. Uh, you knew about that, too, right?"

"Not at the time, but Hawkeye told me when we started dating." She wasn't going to go into how that subject had come up.

"Ah. Well, you know what an irresistible hunk of man you married."

She smiled. "Yes. I guess we all fall for Hawkeye Pierce eventually."

"Maybe I shouldn't have let Peg go to the store with him."

Margaret laughed, although she couldn't help wondering what if anything she should tell Hawkeye about this conversation.

B.J. smiled a little. "Thanks for the talk, but I should go check on Erin."

"OK, I'll keep an eye on the food."

"Don't eat it all, no matter what your baby tells you."

She shook her head and stirred the pot.


	19. Mustache and Beard

Joe Drier at Drier's Groceries teased Hawkeye about shopping with a woman other than the missus. It did feel a little strange, in a different way than when Hawkeye and Margaret had warily begun to sink into domesticity last spring. She and Donald had never played house together, or even lived together in any sense. As for Hawkeye, yes, he had lived with Carlye and they'd gone grocery shopping together occasionally, but usually she took care of that sort of thing, while he focused on his internship.

Peg seemed much more like a wife than Margaret did. The way she moved around Drier's like she'd been coming there since she was a kid. Hawkeye had been helping first his mother and then his father shop there for over twenty-five years, and he didn't know his way around as well as this lady from California. It was the same way she'd acted in his kitchen. He could see why B.J. fell in love with her and had pined for her, needing that stability in this crazy world. In a funny sort of way, Crabapple Cove was Hawkeye's Peg, which maybe was why he needed a wife who surprised him and kept him on his toes.

And yet, Peg surprised him when they went back to his car. They were loading the groceries when she asked, "Could we go for a little drive?"

"Uh, do you want to see the local sights?" It would feel odd without their spouses, but he wanted to be a good host.

"Mostly I want to talk to you."

"Oh." He didn't like the sound of that, but he couldn't think of how to get out of it. "Uh, yeah, let's go to the other edge of town."

"Thank you."

They got in the car and he drove in the opposite direction from the olive green Craftsman. It was only a few minutes before they were out of "downtown" and the buildings, mostly farmhouses, got further apart.

He parked the car by a leafless tree, idly wondering if this had been one of his places to park with girls fifteen years ago.

"So," he said. He really had no idea what this was about. It was probably about B.J., but it could be about Margaret, or someone or something else entirely.

"This is a little awkward, but I want to talk to you about B.J."

"Oh?" He didn't know where this was going but he knew where it could go, so he'd have to proceed cautiously.

"Yes, well, I knew that war would change him. My father was in World War Two when I was a teenager. He volunteered, but he later said it was hell, pardon my French."

"It was no picnic." He wondered if she was going to tell him that B.J. suffered nightmares like he had occasionally. The breakdown near the end had got most of it out of his system, like a mental cleansing as he explained it to his dad once when they were comparing notes on their war and post-war experiences. B.J. had never said anything about nightmares in any of his calls or letters, but it really was something to be said in person, if at all. And he and B.J. had not yet had a chance to talk in private.

"I was expecting changes like with my father, but this is something else."

"Hey, if you tell him you hate the mustache, I'm sure he'll shave it off."

She smiled. "No, I like the mustache, even if it tickles a little."

He had to bite his tongue but he couldn't help smiling a little himself at the memory of his face being tickled.

It wasn't a big smile and it was already dark that late afternoon of one of the shortest days of 1954. But Peg's eyes lit up like Hawkeye was grinning so much his teeth glittered in the sun. Then she squealed, "I knew it!"

"Uh, knew what?" Now he was really nervous.

She sobered from her glee and her voice was hushed. "It's been a year and a half since he came home, so I've had time to think about this. He was different when he came home, and he's still changed. But it wasn't just the war. It was like he was guilty about something, although I know B.J. would never hurt anyone."

Her faith in her husband was touching and a little scary. He thought of how Trapper called B.J. a saint. Hawkeye had the feeling it wasn't easy when so many people expect you to be a saint. It was a problem Hawkeye would never have.

Peg continued, "I knew I should ask him, but I didn't want to be right. Or hurt him if I was wrong. But if it's you, it's all right."

He couldn't help asking, "If what's me?"

"I thought, well, I know things happen during wartime. And B.J. wrote to me often about how lonely he was. So if he met another woman, well, I'm not saying it would've been all right, but I would've understood."

It struck Hawkeye how strange this conversation would've seemed to him only four years ago. Not that it wasn't strange to him now, but the Hawkeye of 1950 had had no real sympathy for the wives back home. Lorraine Blake, Louise McIntyre, Louise Burns, and all the rest were just names to him. Adultery was something to joke about.

And yet, Hawkeye had usually been hesitant to fool around with married women. The two exceptions were Carlye, who he'd never fallen out of love with, and Margaret, who he'd never fallen into love with.

But, yes, he'd had two back-to-back affairs with men. Somehow it'd never felt like adultery to him or either of his two male lovers. Maybe because there was no chance of him being the second spouse. Maybe because both loves were rooted in the war, in holding each other to keep from falling apart.

"If it was you, someone so good, someone who kept him safe and sane, who made sure he'd come back to me, then I feel much better about it."

Hawkeye felt too moved for words. Maybe Peg was just relieved that it'd been a man, but this felt like something else.

Still, Peg thought it'd been one affair. Hawkeye knew he could never tell her about Carrie Donovan or Aggie O’Shea. And he'd do his damnedest to keep B.J. from ever telling her.

He wondered if he should tell her that he and B.J. had never done more than cuddle and kiss. Maybe she would find that comforting, to think that she was the only one B.J. had ever had sex with. Hell, Hawkeye hadn't even necked or petted with B.J.

But he could think of two good reasons not to, besides the fact that he didn't want to kiss and tell to his ex-lover's wife. Peg not just accepted but was grateful for the love between her husband and his best friend, so maybe it didn't matter what she thought had happened physically. Also, if B.J. was acting like he had a guilty conscience, sleeping with Hawkeye should be reason enough.

Peg smiled. "So you like the mustache?"

"Well, I thought it was cheesy at first, but it grew on me."

"You mean it grew on Beauregard Jefferson Hunnicutt."

He blinked. "Is that what it stands for?" It sounded very southern for a Bay Area boy.

She laughed wickedly and for a moment he wondered if this was all an elaborate prank that B.J. and Margaret were in on. Then he decided only that last part was a trick, but she was still a good match for B.J.

"I'd better take you home before B.J. thinks we really did run off together."

"Or before he runs off with Hot Lips."

He was startled again, not so much by her joking back as by the nickname for her dear friend. B.J. must've mentioned it in an early letter back home. Or, hell, she could've heard it from Lorraine Blake when she sent the wedding invitation. Hawkeye barely understood his own wife. His friends' wives were even more of a mystery.


	20. Chivalry

"I miss them," Margaret said while cuddling with her husband a couple days into 1955.

"Me, too," Hawkeye said.

It had been a lovely visit, despite the awkwardness. Erin was excited about snow and she romped with Franny and she tore into her presents until the living room was covered in wrapping paper and ribbons. It was wonderful to have a child in the house. Yes, the McIntyre girls had been there six months earlier for the wedding, but Margaret hadn't been able to focus on them then. She wondered what it'd be like if she had a daughter, especially since she hadn't learned to get along with women until her 30s. She and Hawkeye had agreed that if their baby was a girl, she'd be named Sarah. It would make Dan happy and there was no other female name that came close to being important in their lives, although she reluctantly agreed that Margaret might work as a middle name.

She remembered Henry Blake once saying in the OR that Margaret was his mother's name, so of course Hawkeye joked, "It was my father's."

There were too many possibilities for boys' names, although neither Dan nor Ben wanted his name as the first name. Hawkeye kept joking they should name a son after the baby's great-great-grandfather Tombstone Pierce.

"I'm glad you and B.J. got to talk."

The two of them had compared notes on their one-on-one conversations with the Hunnicutts. Yes, the conversations had been confidential but they had to head off a disaster in the Hunnicutt marriage. She felt a little guilty, but B.J. had told her that his fear of Peg having a difficult pregnancy and birth was being mistaken for his guilt over adultery, and what Peg told Hawkeye only confirmed that. Margaret agreed with Ben that Peg was better off not knowing about B.J.'s affairs with women. The affairs were long over and B.J., unlike probably Trapper, was not a serial adulterer. But it was possible that B.J. might still confess to Peg.

"You're going to have to tell him that you sacrificed your reputation to shield Lt. Donovan and Miss O'Shea."

Hawkeye sighed. "Chivalry is such a burden."

She snorted.

The two men didn't talk Christmas Day but they did go for a walk to the pond on Boxing Day. And whatever Hawkeye said to B.J. must've helped, because when Margaret went to use the bathroom in the middle of the night (she needed to pee what felt like constantly in the sixth month), she heard some muffled amorous noises coming out of Sarah's room. And B.J. and Peg were holding hands under the table at breakfast the next couple days.

Besides the marriage counseling— which Margaret and Hawkeye both admitted they weren't exactly the most qualified to offer— they just enjoyed spending time with one of their favorite couples. Joking and a little drinking and lots and lots of talking. They had to agree to not discuss politics, although it was pretty clear to Margaret that she was the only person in the room, with the possible exception of Erin, who wasn't hoping that Adlai Stevenson would try to run against General Eisenhower again in '56.

Margaret felt a little guilty about the shop talk, the conversations about medicine among the three doctors that she eagerly joined in on. She didn't want Peg to feel left out, so she apologized to her in the kitchen one morning, while Peg was making breakfast and Erin was playing with her new rag doll, a gift from Dan.

"Oh, don't worry about it. It happens at home when he gets together with his colleagues. And it was one of the things I missed when he was away."

Margaret had also wondered if she'd feel jealous of B.J. After all, this was another of Hawkeye's ex-lovers coming to visit. But, especially after the first couple months, B.J. and Hawkeye had had a less adversarial attitude towards her than Trapper and Hawkeye had, although she didn't entirely blame Trapper for that. (Frank had reinforced her us vs. them attitude.) When they said goodbye after two years of working together as respected colleagues and as friends who could be brutally honest and gently comforting— one of her favorite memories was dancing with B.J. to comfort him on his wedding anniversary— she told him she hoped she'd meet someone like him. And he'd replied that he hoped that, too, because she deserved the best.

Of course, she'd already met her husband, who was not simply like Hawkeye but was Hawkeye. No one had known that at the time, but she understood now that B.J. had always hoped she and Hawkeye would get together, had done what he could to encourage it, both during and after the war. Considering how much B.J. loved Hawkeye, she felt not just flattered but honored that he thought she was good enough and right for his best friend.

So, no, it didn't bother her to see Hawkeye and B.J. together, with that bond that only they shared. It made her happy to see Ben so happy. In a different way than Peg with the shop talk, she was glad that Hawkeye had survived for a peace that looked like this.

She and Peg didn't talk about their husbands' "affair." If Peg had brought it up, it would've been awkward in a different way than her bringing it up with Hawkeye, but Margaret would've shared her own thoughts. Margaret had the feeling that Peg wasn't going to even talk to B.J. about it. Peg had said what she had to say to Hawkeye and drawn comfort from his response. Why rock the boat further? And for all Margaret knew, Peg might think that Margaret was unaware of Hawkeye's romantic involvement with B.J. Peg might think she was sparing and protecting her friend.

"Would you like a foot rub?" Ben asked suddenly.

"Of course. Thank you."

Her feet were swollen. Obviously they weren't the only swollen parts of her. And Hawkeye of course often teased her about her weight gain. After all, he had told her she needed to lose weight four years earlier, when he gave her a leering exam and she rejected his advances. He was more chivalrous now, but he was still Hawkeye and he was still going to tease, if in a more loving manner.

"Your little piggies are turning into hogs," he said before kissing five of them.

She rolled her eyes, partly in exasperation and partly in arousal. Then she managed to say, "I bet B.J. doesn't make fun of Peg during her pregnancies."

"Well, they're not as good buddies as we are."

She laughed but she knew it was true. In a funny sort of way, she and Ben had the strongest marriage of any couple they knew, even though he wasn't in love with her and she still wondered why she put up with him.

Then he started massaging and kissing higher up and she thought of one very good reason she put up with him.


	21. Leap

It happened so quickly. That was what Hawkeye thought later. And yet, in that moment he had time to think _Of course. There is no Happily Ever After in real life. And the dog always dies._

They were walking the dog one Saturday in March. The roads were dangerous because they were moving from icy to slushy. Franny darted across the road to chase a squirrel, the first squirrel she'd seen in months, now that winter was ending. The driver tried to swerve out of the way but skidded.

Hawkeye stood frozen as he watched this unfold. Then the nagging, hysterical voice of Hot Lips ordered, "Pierce, do something!"

In the old days, that wouldn't have worked on him. It would've made him want to do the opposite of what she asked, while making a sarcastic remark. But it was not the old days and Margaret was his wife, Franny their other baby. Hawkeye realized with a jolt that Margaret might go into early labor, and this was the eighth month.

He ran into the road, trying not to slip. The driver had stopped the car after hitting Franny and apparently had been as stunned as Hawkeye. He now got out of the car, babbling an apology. He was young, old enough to drive, but too young to have gone to Korea. He'd probably never encountered death before.

Then Franny let out a small whimper. She was alive and conscious!

After that, things were a blur. The young man, Hawkeye thought of him as a boy, helped him carry Franny home on foot, while Margaret barked orders like there were dozens of human casualties, not one collie who leaped before she looked. Hawkeye kept expecting his expectant wife to faint or cry or do something else weakly feminine. But, while there was no question that she was female, not with that belly, there was nothing frail about her right then.

The boy let her boss him around, as a slightly older boy, now a St. Louis cop, once had, although he didn't salute her or call her Sir. "Yes, Mrs. Pierce. Of course, Mrs. Pierce." Hawkeye would've been amused if he weren't worried about Franny.

Hawkeye wanted to call the veterinarian, but Margaret insisted that time was of the essence. She assisted him in the examination room. He thought of operating on his oldest friend, Tommy Gillis, and losing him. He thought of operating on Radar's rabbit, Fluffy. He thought of how none of the other operations Margaret had assisted him at were quite like this.

Franny had a broken leg. The internal organs seemed to be fine. It could've been so much worse.

After they'd washed up after the operation, Margaret wanted to sit and watch over Franny's sleep.

He noticed the shadows hanging over her big blue eyes. "You need your rest, too," he said in the voice of a friend rather than a husband or a doctor.

He expected her to argue with him, but she just nodded wearily. He put his arm around her and escorted her out of the room.

When they went into the living room, they found the boy watching TV with Hawkeye's dad. The older Dr. Pierce met his son's eyes and they silently communicated that the boy had told the old man about the accident.

"How is she? Is your dog OK?" the boy asked, leaping to his feet.

"She's a little worse for wear, but she'll be OK."

"Gosh, I wish there was something I could do!"

"Go home. Tell your folks."

The boy paled. "Do I have to?"

Hawkeye nodded. "I think you do."

"It's just, well, I wasn't supposed to have the car today."

"Oh. Listen, uh, what's your name?"

"Laurence, with a U."

"Like Olivier?"

"His mother was pregnant when she saw _Wuthering Heights_ ," Dr. Daniel Pierce said. Hawkeye wondered if Laurence had told him that or if the doctor remembered delivering this kid sixteen years ago. Or was it even sixteen? Hawkeye seemed to remember it was the Spring of '39 when he took Betty Lou Chambers to see that movie.

"How old are you?" Hawkeye asked.

"Sixteen. Well, almost."

Hawkeye looked at Margaret, expecting her to tear into the boy. But she just sighed and said, "Dan, can you drive Laurence home and explain to his parents?"

"Of course, Margie."

After the old man and the boy left, Margaret said, "I can get upstairs on my own. Can you sit with Franny until your dad gets back?"

"Of course, Sweetheart."

He watched her ascend the staircase alone and then sighed and went back in to the examination room. He watched the injured collie breathe slowly and twitch in her sleep from her nightmares.

Eventually, his father knocked on the open door and came in. "How's she doing?"

"Franny or Margaret?"

"Both."

"I think they're both OK, considering."

"How are you doing, Son?"

He sighed. "I don't know. I mean, you know, in wartime death and pain are all around you. Everything's so peaceful in Crabapple Cove."

His dad nodded. "So when something like this happens, it seems like a big deal."

"Right."

"Hawkeye, it's always going to hurt when those you care about get hurt. Even if you're a hotshot doctor."

Hawkeye chuckled despite himself, and then he sighed again. "I know. Can you sit with Franny?"

"Of course. You get some rest."

"Thanks, Dad." He hugged his father on the way out and then headed upstairs.

He found Margaret crying quietly in bed. He took off his shoes and crawled into bed, wrapping his arms around her. He cried a little, too. Even though everything was mostly OK.

"Oh, Hawkeye," she said then kissed his cheek. "Don't cry!"

"Why not?"

"I don't want you to be sad."

He shook his head. "But you get to cry?"

"I'm a very pregnant woman!"

He chuckled. "I love you."

"I love you, too."

"And this time the dog doesn't die."

She nodded. "Only the rabbit."

He gasped at her dark humor and then let loose with the big, uncontrollable laughter that he'd needed so often in Korea but not so much in Maine. He supposed there would always a piece of the war even during peace.


	22. Scathed

Hawkeye Pierce had observed to his fiancée a year ago that she had gotten out of the war relatively unscathed. "All the men, we got scathed."

It was true in a way. Not just Henry Blake's death but the various injuries the men suffered, sometimes inflicted by each other. She, on the other hand, rarely even got sick.

"Well, I'm a tough old broad," she'd joked.

She knew his reply wouldn't be chivalrous or sweet, but she did not expect him to say, "Yeah, like a Valkyrie. I bet you'd look sexy in a winged helmet and bronze breastplate. And of course your blonde hair in braids."

Now, here she was, trying to be strong and brave, while undergoing the worst pain of her life, and he had to remark, "Did I ever tell you how cute you are in ponytails?"

"Goddammit, Hawkeye! I'm in labor!"

"Yeah, I know, but this is the part where you're supposed to curse your husband for getting you into this mess, so I thought I'd distract you."

She couldn't help laughing and then she pushed harder through the pain.

It was just the two of them, in their bedroom, the same place they'd made the baby. Dan wanted to be there for the birth of his first grandchild, but he had some house calls to make. Plus, they didn't want Franny to worry about any sounds of pain. So the dog was making the house calls with Dan, but presumably none of his patients were suffering like this.

"Almost there, Sweetheart!" Now Ben's voice was sweet and encouraging, but also nervous and scared.

That added to Margaret's own fear and nervousness, him no longer being glib, but she was touched by it.

Then he said in a concerned tone, "Maybe I should've ordered morphine and scopolamine."

"No, I wanted to be awake for the birth." She still did, as awful as it was. She wanted to go through this experience at least once, to understand it in a different way than she did as a nurse. She didn't want to disappear into "twilight sleep."

"I meant for me. You could've just woken me when it was over."

She laughed again and was glad he was again trying to amuse her through this ordeal.

After awhile, he whispered, "Baby," again and again. She wasn't sure if it was an endearment or a chant.

And eventually he cried, "The head is crowning!" As if she couldn't feel it. Then he said, "Hm, like mother, like daughter. Blonde with black roots."

"You're very lucky I can't slap you right now!" she panted.

"I'll take a raincheck."

She kept pushing, and after the shoulders it got relatively easier.

Before long, Hawkeye said, "Well, there's something our daughter didn't inherit from you. I guess we'll have to put the name Sarah in reserve."

"A boy? We have a son?"

"It looks that way." Despite his calm tone, he was grinning and he had tears in his eyes.

After that, she was even more impatient for the labor to be over, but mostly so she could see and hold her son. Finally, the baby was nestled in her arms, his cries fading into snuffles. He was beautiful, and balder than Charles Emerson Winchester the Third.

"Ben, we really do need to decide on a name."

"How about Laurence?"

"No, seriously." She didn't hold a grudge against the young man, especially since Franny was healing well and Laurence did their yardwork as penance. But it wasn't like they were desperate for a boy's name.

"I am serious. We could call him Larry for short. Or LP."

She had to laugh. "Like a long-playing record?"

"Or the last piece."

...

Forty-eight years later, Margaret Houlihan Penobscott Pierce lay on her deathbed. Same bed, same husband, although she felt bad that she hadn't made it to their golden anniversary.

"I'll try to last at least a year without you, so I can throw a party by your grave."

She shook her head. That same irreverent humor that had first repelled and then attracted her, so that, even while convinced she was deeply in love with Frank Burns, she'd smile under her mask in the OR at Captain Pierce's wit.

If she and Hawkeye had gotten together sooner, maybe it would've lasted fifty years. Or maybe he would've been another ex-husband, since they weren't ready for each other during the war, and even in peacetime they had a rocky start. As it was, there were those who said it couldn't last, including Margaret herself. But when they'd go through rough patches, Ben would say, "Hey, at least we'll have stories to tell our grandkids."

They had three, Larry's kids by Bridget Keilani O'Reilly. Larry was an amateur pilot and was supposed to fly into Crabapple Cove tomorrow. Margaret was sure she could last at least long enough to say goodbye to her baby boy. As for the grandchildren, they were scattered around the country, but they'd all promised to make it back in time to see Grammy, to comfort Gramps.

"I just want you to know, I've loved you for over fifty years."

She nodded, swallowing her tears, although swallowing was hard.

"But I never did fall in love with you."

"I know," she whispered, "and I don't hold that against you."

"I fell in love all the time when I was young, especially in Korea. But you were something bigger than love."

"I don't understand." She didn't think it was just that her mind was failing.

"I could never put you into words. I tried, that second time we all got interviewed by Clete Roberts."

She smiled a little. "You said I was something."

"I said you were really something. I said it twice. And you were. You are. You continue to amaze me."

"Well, thank you."

"You're still my favorite officer in the whole U.S. Army."

She thought of all the wars and near-wars in the last five decades but said, "Death really brings out your compliments, doesn't it?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna give you a hell of a eulogy. I wish you could be there."

"Me, too."

"So, uh, listen."

"Yeah, uh."

She wished she had the strength to give him the goodbye kiss he deserved. She barely had the strength to press his hand when he held hers.

"I want you to know, I was 100% faithful. Well, except for that weekend in San Francisco, and we agreed that doesn't count."

She chuckled, even though it hurt. "Ditto."

It was the last thing she said, the last time he made her laugh. By the time their son and grandchildren arrived, there was a newly widowed doctor living in the olive green Craftsman on the edge of a small town on the northeastern edge of the United States.

FAREWELL AND AMEN


End file.
